


Res Gestae

by dreamlittleyo



Series: Res Gestae [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time, Genderswap, M/M, Romance, Sibling Incest, Tricksters, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-06
Updated: 2011-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-17 16:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean disappears on a hunt, the last thing Sam expects is the help of another psychic in trying to find him. The search doesn't go well, and when Dean walks back into his life, it's with news that tears the world out from under them both.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They’re chasing rumors of a ghost ship on the Great Lakes, about as far North as they can get and still be in Michigan, when Dean disappears. He just steps out for coffee one morning and doesn’t come back.

“You want food?” he asks, propping the door with his ankle. “I could see what they've got at the diner across the street.”

“No, just coffee.”

Two hours later Sam can't ignore the cold gnaw of worry when Dean still hasn’t returned. The keys are still in his pocket, because the place with the really _good_ coffee is only a ten-minute walk away, and Dean should be back by now. Sam calls and leaves a concerned voice mail, keeps his eyes open for any hint of where his brother might’ve gone, and continues looking into the disappearance of some ship called _Le Griffon_ that Sam could really give two shits about. He keeps his twitching to a minimum while he interviews witnesses, does his best to focus on the case through the growing unease, and leaves four more voicemails as the day stretches on and Dean's absence persists.

By day two Sam gives up all pretense of investigating the hunt and focuses everything he's got on being really goddamn freaked out about Dean. Because it’s been two days and he still isn’t answering the dozens of calls Sam has left him. By day three, Dean’s cell doesn’t even ring out before sending him to voicemail, and Sam is running out of places to look and people to question.

On day seven, Sam decides he’s had enough. He’s looked everywhere, torn the whole damn town apart in search of something resembling a trail, and he's got precisely jack squat. There’s nothing else he can do here, so he packs up the car and makes a new plan.

An ominous cloudbank has moved in by the time Sam checks out and throws the last of their gear in the trunk. He’s vibrating with seven straight days of panic, about to climb in the car, get his ass on the interstate and pray for the thousandth time that someone at the Roadhouse can tell him _any_ thing, when a shrill “Wait!” makes him freeze and turn.

He watches with eyebrows up to his scalp as a small, plain woman runs straight at him from across the parking lot. She looks like she’s barely legal to drink, young and worried beneath flopping bangs, a small duffel swinging wildly behind her as she moves.

She’s a little out of breath when she reaches him, and he watches her tuck her hair out of her face in a gesture of obvious discomfort. She barely reaches his collarbone, and everything about her is small and nervous. Her face schools into an impressive poker face when she looks up at him.

“Are you Sam?”

“I…” Okay, so _that_ Sam wasn’t expecting. He tries to keep the suspicion from his voice. “Yes. Who--?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but… I’ve been dreaming about you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Thanks,” the girl says, diving gratefully into the steaming mug of coffee as soon as the waitress has walked away. She drains half of it in one long gulp, and Sam takes the moment to study her. Her clothes are nondescript but clean: jeans, sneakers, a baggy t-shirt with a ridiculous picture of a rooster on it. Her hair is short and simple, brown and a little messy. He can't tell what color her eyes are, because they're closed as she downs the crappy coffee like she’s going for some kind of record. He clears his throat when she finally puts the mug down, and when she looks at him her eyes are brown.

“So,” he says when he realizes she’s not going to talk. “You obviously know who _I_ am. Who are you?”

“Karen,” she says, dropping her gaze to stare straight into her mug. “My name is Karen. And no, I don’t. Know who you are, I mean. Not really.” She chews on her lower lip and looks like she’s trying very, _very_ hard to decide how much to tell him.

“You said you’ve been having dreams about me,” he coaxes, putting on his most reassuring face even though she refuses to look at him. “Tell me about them.”

“I can never remember much.” She takes a slower sip of her coffee. “Just… your face. Your name. That car. Lots of pieces that come and go before I can really put my finger on them.”

“How did you find me?”

“Accident?” She looks up with the strangest expression on her face. “I thought I was going crazy when I saw you from the road just now. I almost didn’t come talk to you.”

“Why did you?” he asks, genuinely curious and wanting to know everything he can about this girl who just walked up to him and admitted to prophetic dreams. He’s more than a little suspicious, and their track record with other psychics hasn’t been the best, even if they _have_ finally found a couple that aren’t evil, homicidally insane, or both.

Sam sees that look cross her face again, all heavy and careful, like she’s weighing and calculating and gearing up to admit something dangerous. Or maybe to deliver a convincing performance. But there’s something genuine and a little bit desperate in her eyes, and Sam decides to hear her out.

“I know there are… _things_ out there. Monster things. Stuff that’s not supposed to exist, only it does. Ghosts and curses and… other stuff. I even know how to end some of them.”

“How?” Sam asks, tries to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“My dad,” she says, bites her lip again. “He hunted that shit. Taught me everything he could before he went and got himself killed trying to save someone that didn’t deserve it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.” The look in her eyes says it still hurts like hell, but he keeps his mouth shut. Keeps it shut while she steels herself to say something that looks worse and just waits for her to speak again. When she does, her voice has dropped, and he has to strain to hear her over the chatter of the other patrons. “About a week ago my family’s house burned down. None of them made it. I knew I was in danger, so I hitched a ride out of town the same night.”

“Why would you think you were in danger?” he asks, following her cue and keeping his voice low.

“Because I dreamed it,” she says. She follows up with a bark of incredulous laughter, like it sounds crazy even to her, and her tone goes just a little bit manic. “Before it happened, I mean. And they were supposed to be just dreams, but then they weren’t anymore. I’ve been hitching rides anywhere else ever since. And then I started dreaming _your_ face. And there was this sense of urgency and your name, and it can’t be a coincidence that I just _found_ you like this, right?”

“Okay, first? Breathe.” He waits until she does, and he sets what he hopes is a reassuring hand over hers. “Now. What else can you tell me about these dreams?”

“I… I don’t know. They hurt like hell. And they don’t make any real kind of sense, just bits and pieces. But I have to go with you.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible,” Sam says, and he realizes he really is. Sorry that he can’t do anything to help her, that all he _can_ do is exchange numbers and drive away hoping she’ll be all right. He’s got this feeling, like he should be keeping her close and watching her back, but she’ll be a hell of a lot safer if she’s nowhere near him. “It’s too dangerous. I hunt those things you were talking about. And right now I’m… I have to find someone, and I can’t do that if I’m trying to watch out for you.”

“Your brother.”

Sam’s hand on hers tightens from reassuring pressure to iron grip before he can curb the response, but she doesn’t so much as flinch. He draws his hand away and in a carefully measured tone asks, “How do you know that?”

“I told you. Bits and pieces.” She’s staring at him now, eyebrows drawn and intense. “I can help you find him. I don’t know how, but I _know_. I think you need me.”

And that look in her eyes is back, desperate and raw and suddenly so open that Sam feels guilty for his suspicions. She’s terrified, maybe at the thought of getting left behind or maybe something else entirely. Even if she’s lying about the specifics, he’s suddenly sure there’s truth in everything she’s told him.

“Please,” she whispers.

“Karen--”

“My family is dead, _something_ is after me, and the only clue I have is this dream telling me I have to stick close to you.” She reaches out, her tiny fingers closing around his wrist. “I can help. Sam, please, you have to let me come with you.” Her voice burns with something familiar, desperation and hope and vengeance all blurring together, and he realizes he can’t say no.

“All right. Okay. Yes. But you do as I say the _second_ I say it, even if it sounds stupid or crazy. I’m not getting you killed.”

“You mean it? I can come?”

“Yeah," he says, quirking an eyebrow. "If you were one of the bad guys your story would suck less.”

“Shut up,” she mutters, but it comes from behind a smile so relieved that Sam has to return it. He grins in spite of his trepidation, in spite of the cold stab of worry that hasn’t left him in a week.

“You need to stop and pick anything up from your hotel or something?” he asks her when they get back to the Impala.

“Nope. This is it.” She points to the duffel and Sam feels horrible for asking. Because her house burned down, and she ran away, and of _course_ all her stuff is gone. He opens the passenger door like a proper gentleman, closes it behind her, and prays he’s not making a gargantuan mistake.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

An hour passes on the road, quiet and awkward, and out of the corner of his eye Sam can see his new passenger struggling to think of something to say. Her whole frame is tense as she stares out at the road, throwing glances his way every few minutes. Sam doesn’t know what to talk about either, and he nearly groans in relief when she finally opens her mouth to speak.

“Your car is awesome, dude.”

“It’s my brother’s,” he admits.

“Then your brother’s a stud.”

Sam laughs out loud at that, sparing an amused glance to the side and watching the girl, _Karen_ , stroke almost fondly along the dashboard.

“Do me a favor?” Sam puts his eyes back on the road where they belong. “When you meet him, don’t tell him that. His ego doesn’t need the help.”

Karen snickers, a low wry sound that makes Sam suspect she’s got experience with at least one brother of her own. The thought takes him back into unpleasant territory, recent tragedy confessed over coffee, and his smile slips too quickly from his face. He clears his throat, uncomfortable again, and leans more heavily on the gas.

“There’s music. Under the seat.” Sam half expects to be mocked for the box of cassettes, still almost entirely Dean’s collection because Sam has always been content with the radio. Karen just paws her way through them without complaint.

“Any preference?” she asks.

“Nah. Those are my brother’s, too. You can mess with the radio if there’s nothing you want to listen to.”

Karen shrugs, grabs one from the pile and feeds it in. Zeppelin blasts unexpectedly loud, right at the apex of side two's screechiest song, and she yelps and cranks the volume down to something that won’t split their ears from their heads. Her mumbled apology goes unheeded, because Sam is already laughing again. Dean might like this girl, even if she’s not quite his brother's type. Pretty but plain, dressed conservatively and not wearing any make-up at all. Sam supposes the clothes and the makeup wouldn’t have made it out of the fire, and he wonders if she had to steal the small duffel and the things in it.

He forcibly derails that train of curiosity before he can voice any of it aloud, because it’s none of his business. The silence, when it settles back in, is less painful with music running through it, and Sam can feel the tension draining slowly out of the air.

It’s thirty miles and twenty minutes later when Karen speaks again. Her voice is a little hesitant as she asks, “Will you help me train up? To fight and stuff?”

He very nearly yanks the wheel to the side and pulls off the road right there, but he forces his hands steady and levels his stare harder down the lane of sparse traffic.

“You said you knew how to hunt.” He keeps his tone as even as the rest of him, suddenly angry that he let her talk him into this. How is he supposed to find Dean and baby-sit at the same time? He’s got half a mind to turn around and dump her right back in the parking lot where he found her. It's only an hour and a half behind them.

“Yeah, but… it’s been a long time, okay? And it’s not like I ever had to _use_ any of the shit my dad taught me. I just don’t know how good I’m still gonna be.”

Sam breathes in. Breathes out again. Takes an extra deep breath and is about to explain that he doesn’t have time for this when she cuts hurriedly in.

“Look, I know you want to find your brother fast. I’m not asking you to put everything on hold to make me into a fighting machine, and I promise I’ll stay out of the way until I know what I’m doing.” She’s babbling, and Sam can hear terror in it again, the fear that he'll leave her behind, and her sudden panic makes the lecture crumble in his throat. “I want to be able to help. Maybe when we stop…”

“Yeah, okay.”

His trepidation dials up a notch, and this bad idea is starting to look like death and disaster in the making, but he doesn’t turn the car around. He also doesn’t complain when she reaches out and turns the music up to just shy of deafening, and the interstate rolls dry beneath them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harvelle’s is crowded when they walk in. It’s not quite late, and all the regular patrons are buzzed and noisy. Karen sticks close behind him as Sam works his way towards the bar, claims the stool next to his when he sits.

“Sam!” Jo is in the far corner, and she smiles wide from behind a mess of empty pitchers she’s wrestling towards the kitchen. He smiles back, a little forced and stiff, and watches as she deposits her cargo and weaves her way towards them.

“Hey,” he says, awkward but hopeful, because maybe she can help and that's the whole point.

“Where’s Dean?” she asks. Her smile broadcasts poorly concealed hope of her own, and Sam’s starts blowing away in bits.

“I actually wondered if you might’ve heard something.” He keeps his voice low, decides immediately on the complete and total truth. “He disappeared a week ago.” He watches her eyes widen and her face fall, and then her mostly stoic mask slips into place.

“What happened?” Her voice isn't quite steady, and Sam would feel guilty as hell for worrying her if he weren’t so desperate for _any_ kind of a lead.

“I don’t know. He just stepped out one morning and never stepped back in again.” Sam resists the urge to hyperventilate at saying it aloud. “So you haven’t heard anything? Anything at _all_ about Dean?”

“Not that wasn’t about you both. Stuff you’ve been killing lately. Nothing like this.”

“Oh. I guess… thanks anyway.” A dodgy sort of silence settles between them, shattered by the sound of a throat clearing from Sam’s other side.

“Oh! Sorry. Jo, this is Karen. Karen, Jo.”

“Hi.” Karen reaches an arm around Sam and shakes Jo’s hand. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Just wanted a proper introduction. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah. You, too.” Jo’s eyes jump back and forth between the two of them, and Sam doesn’t really have the energy to clarify. A busy Harvelle’s isn’t really a smart place for the ‘so I found another psychic’ discussion anyway.

“Is your mom around?” he asks instead.

“In back. You want me to get her?”

Ellen doesn’t know anything either, but she promises to keep an ear out and then gives them both a pint of whatever’s on tap. Jo keeps her distance, busing tables and throwing curious looks their way as they drink their beer in frustrated silence. Karen gets fidgety first.

“So. Now what, dude?”

Sam drops his head into his hand and stares at the notched wood of the bar. “I don’t know.” He can feel the panic stirring around in his gut, and it wants out. Badly enough that Sam throws a twenty on the table and shoves his way to the exit, leaving Karen to follow because no way in hell is he doing this in a crowded bar, especially one with _this_ clientele.

It’s cool outside, the night touched by wind and whispers and the sound of crickets in the tall grass around the parking lot. Sam walks right out into it and straight for the nearest tree. He just stares at it for long, numbed minutes before letting loose with a growl and a punch that leaves blood and skin on the rough bark. He punches it a second time, winds up for a third when an unexpected pressure at his wrist makes him pull up short.

“Stop that, dumbass!” Karen barks, and he drops the undelivered blow. “That’s not going to goddamn _help_.”

“He’s gone.” Sam’s voice feels harsh in his own head. “He’s gone, and I don’t have the first fucking clue where to look.”

“We should go back to Michigan. Where I found you, that town with the weird-ass name--”

“Escanaba.”

“Yeah. There. We should go back.” She takes a handkerchief out from somewhere and starts applying pressure to his knuckles. The only light out here comes from the moon and the windows behind them, but it's enough for the blood on his hands to glint wet.

“There’s no point. I searched for a week. He’s not there. There wasn’t even a trail to follow.”

“But you’ve got his car, right?” Her voice conveys a calm certainty, a little bit forced but still reassuring, and he feels his blood settle with each word out of her mouth. “So your best lead is still _there_. We could start searching in the surrounding counties and work our way out. Yeah?”

It might be bullshit, but it doesn’t sound quite so crazy or hopeless when it’s coming out of someone else's mouth. Sam can breathe again at least, and he takes the handkerchief and wipes away what he can of the bloody mess he's made of his left hand. Nothing is broken except skin, and Sam feels a little bit foolish for his outburst.

“It’s somewhere to start at least, right?” Karen presses, tone careful.

“Yeah. Okay. We can do that.” Sam stares at the moon and chews on his lip, reminds himself that his brother is the most competent bad-ass that ever lived. Dean is fine. He has to be.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam follows through on their previous conversation, taking the time to help Karen train up with every overnight stop. It’s practically routine after the first week: drive into town, get a room with two queens, search and dig and question until it’s obvious there’s nothing to be found, and then crash out, frustrated and exhausted. The next morning, find an open patch of grass to spar in, preferably out of sight so Sam doesn’t get arrested for battery. On the way out of town, stop and find an appropriate field to practice with the firearms.

The guns turn out to be the easy part. When he first hands her the shotgun, prepared to give a long, boring review on weapon maintenance, she takes it apart and puts it right back together again. She does the same with the other guns he shows her.

In actual target practice, it takes her a few days to get a feel for them. She snaps at him when he tries to give her pointers about how to deal with the kickback and figures it out mostly by trial and error. Once that hurdle is cleared her aim improves almost instantly. In less than two weeks he feels confident that she could watch his back without accidentally shooting him, and he’s relieved to realize that she wasn’t bluffing about how much she learned from her dad.

The hand-to-hand doesn’t go nearly as well. Sam can tell she knows exactly what she’s doing, but only in theory. The technique is unworkable with her small frame, and she simply doesn’t have the muscle mass necessary to hold her own in a physical fight. Sam bests her easily, time after time after time, as she comes at him with attacks she doesn’t have the strength for. Sam doesn’t have to say it aloud, and they’re only in the second town when she starts ending each day with pushups and crunches and laps around the hotel, but there’s no way it will ever be enough.

“Look,” Sam says on day five. “I don’t mean any disrespect to your dad or what he taught you, but this isn’t working.”

Karen snarls and scowls, tightens her ponytail as she rolls up from the grass. Sam crosses his legs a couple feet away and braces himself.

“What am I supposed to do then?”

“You need to fight more defensively. You keep attacking straight on, and it’s not that you’re doing anything _wrong_ , it’s just… it’s never going to be enough against a real opponent.”

“No shit, dude. I still can’t win against _you_.”

“You shouldn’t be thinking about it like that, winning and losing. You throw a good punch, and that’ll come in handy when you’ve got the element of surprise. But it’s more important that you know how to get loose of a grapple and out of range.”

“You mean running away.” She’s simmering beneath sweaty bangs, frustration pouring off her like sweat. Sam sympathizes, remembers being fourteen and too small and skinny to keep up with Dean when all he wanted was to not be left behind on yet another hunt.

“Retreat is a perfectly legitimate tactic,” Sam points out rationally. “I appreciate that you want to help, but you’re just going to slow me down if I can’t trust you to get yourself _out_ of danger instead of hurling yourself into it.”

Karen huffs, and he knows he’s hit a nerve.

“You’re small and fast. Those _aren't_ weaknesses, Karen. Let me help you focus on that for awhile, okay?” He keeps his tone deliberately gentle and aims for a reassuring expression, watching carefully for her reaction. The look she gives him is indecipherable, until she rolls her eyes and stands back up.

“Christ, you’re seriously worried about hurting my feelings. I’m not that fragile, okay? Lighten up, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam,” he says, automatic reflex and she gives him a startled look. “Sorry,” he mutters guiltily. “It’s… a long story.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She offers him a hand up from the dirt and squints into the sun. “Nothing wrong with long stories. Sam.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Have you had any more of them?” Sam asks one night, hours past sunset and figuring out tomorrow’s route on a wrinkled map.

“More of what?” Karen sounds groggy, but sits up from her cocoon of sheets and comforter nonetheless.

“The dreams. Visions, whatever.”

Karen stills instantly and takes a beat too long to shake her head, no.

“I have them, too, you know.”

Another beat and Karen’s eyes go wide in the lamplight.

“You do?” she asks, voice all cautious hesitance and expression gauging.

“Yeah. And there are others. Psychics with other abilities.” She’s watching him, that same measured look on her face, posture gone stiff. Sam's fingers fidget against the table as he tries to decide how much to share.

“How old are you?” he asks her instead. She seems startled by the question, and her expression shifts to thoughtful, like she’s trying to figure out what possible reason he could have for asking.

“Twenty-two,” she says at last, tilting her head to the side when Sam sighs with relief. She’s too young to fit the pattern. Premonitions of fire aside, it’s entirely possible she has nothing to do with the yellow-eyed demon’s spreading apocalypse. Or everything they thought they knew is wrong, which is sort of a terrifying thought, but that can wait. It can wait until they find Dean, and Sam will ask him what _he_ thinks it means.

“Why?” she asks when the sigh isn’t followed with explanation.

“Nothing. Well, not _nothing_ , but… we think something big might be coming, something to do with all the psychics the same age as me. But we don’t know what, and you’re too young to fit the pattern.”

“That sounds like crazy talk, Sam.”

“Maybe. Anyway, hopefully it’s got nothing to do with you. You're sure you haven't had any more of the dreams?”

“No. None.”

“Good. That’s… that’s good.” Sam nods, looks at his hands and pretends he doesn’t feel dark eyes drilling into the side of his head. Karen watches him for a few minutes, the room thick with the silence between them. He exhales quietly when he hears her wriggle her way back under the covers.

“Go to sleep, Sam,” she orders, serious tone rendered ineffective by the yawn that bisects his name.

“Good night, Karen.”

The route doesn’t take more than five minutes to plan, but it’s a full hour later when Sam finally kills the lights and crawls into his own bed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Just west of Greenbay Sam maxes out his second to last credit card. He takes out a P.O. Box, sends in a pile of applications for both himself and Karen, and makes a note to drop through in a couple weeks. He hesitates but eventually tells her what he’s done, and the illegality of the situation doesn’t seem to faze her. Which makes sense, and Sam immediately decides the rooster t-shirt is too ridiculous _not_ to be stolen.

“Do we need cash?” she asks after he fills her in. “We could hit one of those dives we passed on our way in.”

“You want to go to a bar?” Which isn’t an unusual request in and of itself. They've hung out in a couple bars, more frequently as the weeks have dragged on and the urgency of their search has diminished in direct proportion to the rising sense of futility.

“Yeah. I can hustle a couple games, pool or poker or whatever they’ve got going.”

“You know how to hustle.” Sam tries to keep the disbelief from his voice, he really does. Her exasperated expression tells him he’s failed.

“Told you, Dad taught me everything he could.”

“If you know how to hustle, what were you doing hitching around Michigan with a duffel, a week’s worth of clothes and no money.”

Karen steps in close. Close enough that she has to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, deliberately accentuating the size discrepancy between them.

“Look at me,” she says, hands on her hips. “You think I’m stupid enough to go into that kind of bar alone? Let alone take people’s money and expect to get out with my maidenly honor intact.”

“Sorry.” Sam feels sheepish, the moment awkward as his cheeks burn red and he scratches at the back of his neck. “Wasn’t really thinking. So, hustling, huh?”

Karen smirks and grabs his hand, dragging him to the car and hopping into the passenger seat.

“And with a big, strong boy like you to ogle my back and remind me how long it’s been since I played pool? Candy from babies.” Concern widens her eyes as she turns to regard him seriously. “You _do_ know how to ogle, right?”

Which doesn’t really warrant a response, so Sam snorts and throws the car into reverse, backing out over dust and gravel and driving for the nearest sketchy bar he remembers.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Their path takes them in an outward spiral, as much as it can with state-sized lakes in the way, which isn’t actually much of a spiral at all. But they search their way through dot after dot on the ragged map of the Midwest, and weeks turn into months as they work their strange path through two states and part of Canada. Kenosha, Wisconsin finds them an inadvertent hunt, and the fact that people keep dying stops them from moving immediately on to the next town.

“Nothing on-line. You got anything?” Sam clicks his computer shut and cracks his neck.

“It used to be a seminary, or a monastery or something,” Karen says from the bed, buried in the paper research and trying not to look bored. “Sister Margaret Clare. Apparently she took a dive off the observatory tower.”

“Suicide?”

“That’s what the police said. Some of the students thought she was pushed.”

“I bet. Does it say where she’s buried?”

“Haven’t found it yet,” she mumbles around the cap of her pen.

“Anything I can do?” he asks, reaching for one of the tomes by her knee.

“Nah, I got it.” She bats him away and glances up suddenly, hopeful mischief in her eyes. “You know what you _could_ do.”

“God, woman, are you ever _not_ hungry?” Karen flings the pen at his head, and he dodges with great skill, finesse, and just a hint of a smile. “Fine, you want tacos or burgers?”

“I want donuts. And my pen back.”

“It’s nine o’clock at night! And you can get your own damn pen. I think it landed under the armoire.”

“If you’re making me find the pen myself, the least you can do is get me donuts. A girl needs her strength, dude.” She isn’t looking up any longer, but he can hear the smirk in her voice.

“Fine,” he caves. Throws in a dramatic sigh for good measure as he heads for the door. “Donuts. You better have found that grave when I get back.”

She does find the grave while he’s gone, though a little more literally than Sam intended. He figures this out when, after a humiliatingly long search for donuts, the hotel room he walks back into is empty. He swears under his breath, a long muttering stream of obscenity that Dean would be proud of, and sets the Krispy Cremes down on the bed nearest the door.

A quick search turns up a note saying she’s gone to salt and burn the bones, having discovered the remains are buried in the cemetery just beneath the tower, a whole 10-minute walk away. Karen’s handwriting is clear and neat, all delicate swoops and careful edges and about the girliest script Sam’s ever seen. The grave’s location is copied on the back of the note, and Sam turns right back out the door.

He works himself up into an embarrassingly agitated state of worry as he jogs. This is the angry ghost of a scary nun, buried right in the cemetery where she landed her fall. What if she figures out what Karen is doing and gets pissed? What if Karen gets hurt because he was too busy finding donuts to watch her back? What if she falls from the tower like a dozen previous victims?

But Karen is perfectly intact when he gets there, the fire blazing fresh and new from a grave of soft dirt. Sam hears himself yelling about unnecessary risk and her promise to follow orders, but she cuts him off with a calm “You never told me not to go.”

His rant deflates, and it’s a stupid loophole but it’s true. He didn’t say “wait for me” as he left, and he realizes he’s going to have to step up his guard if she’s going to be such a stickler for semantics. He still bristles a little, the edge of paranoid concern slow to soften.

“Are you all right?” he asks, since he needs to say something.

“Yeah. Got a goose egg from that tree over there, but she didn’t put up much fight.” She grabs up the equipment and starts walking, pausing to wait for him at a tall, phallic tombstone. He shakes his head when she quirks an eyebrow at him, but the last of his anger drains away.

“I can’t believe you took off without me. Don’t do that again.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes at him. “Your brother ever tell you you’re _such_ a princess?”

Sam feels a twinge in his chest reminding him of the gaping hole where Dean is supposed to be right now, but the sensation’s not so unfamiliar anymore and he just says, “Not so much. He called me a girl a lot. Never a princess, though.”

“Well. Congratulations.” She links her free arm through his and pushes the shovel into his other hand. “You’re a pretty-pretty princess, and I still want donuts.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam finally resigns himself to the failure of their plan when he realizes that they've been to literally _every_ town across two states. He doesn’t want to give up on Dean. He can’t give up on Dean, but he has no idea what comes now. The world seems big, chilling and meaningless without his brother in it, and he’s got no direction to go.

Karen saves him via distraction, finding a new gig in southern Minnesota. It’s nearby, looks bigger than the couple of hunts they stumbled into during their mad spiraling trek. A ghoul, or some kind of banshee maybe. Causing a ruckus, terrorizing a quiet neighborhood and, oh, by the way, killing three people a night and leaving their frozen corpses in the street. They don’t so much put it to rest as exorcise it out of existence, and the neighbors are confused but grateful.

It’s not long before their work as a team is solid and efficient, investigating their way from one hunt to the next and keeping a constant eye out for clues that Sam is slowly coming to fear he’ll never find. They stop at the Roadhouse at irregular but frequent intervals, touching base as much as hoping for information that doesn’t come. They’re taking on hunts that might make Sam nervous even with his brother watching his back, coming out thanks to luck more often than not, but Karen likes to get drunk and brag to Jo about their successes, and Jo doesn’t seem to mind.

They picked up the new batch of credit cards before clearing out of Wisconsin, and Sam notices Karen using hers along with her share of the money from hustling to expand from the tiny duffel she’s had since she found him. He thinks it’s a good thing, figures she wasn’t done mourning the fire and her family and her life before. He hopes it means she’s managed to move on if she’s buying new things.

The new clothes she buys fit her better and make Sam feel sheepishly Neanderthal every time he wants to punch a cashier in the face for looking a little too long. She starts wearing makeup, and before long she’s washing her hair with something that smells like tangerines instead of stealing Sam’s shampoo. She looks downright respectable, and it makes getting information from witnesses easier than Sam realized it could ever be, working with a pretty girl that’s so obviously harmless. Sam’s never been fooled by the ‘harmless,’ but it gets harder to ignore the ‘pretty’ with each passing day.

One Thursday night finds them victorious over a vicious nest of pixies, and they visit a bar to get victoriously drunk.

“Good riddance,” says Karen, raising a toast and scowling dramatically. “To all those nasty little buggers, and their goddamn pointy teeth.” They’re already a couple rounds in, so Sam thinks Karen's salute sounds perfectly eloquent and clinks his mug with hers.

“I’m thinking bee suits next time,” he says, waving the bartender down for two more beers. “Or… bio-hazard suits, or gardening gloves or something.”

“No next time.” She grabs for the new mug and shoves the empty one aside. “No how. I’d rather face down three werewolves than deal with another nest of those suckers.”

“Werewolves have pointier teeth than pixies,” Sam points out reasonably. “And claws. Nasty ones.”

“God damnit,” Karen mutters, thumps her head on the table because her logic is broken and she knows it.

“Anyway, it doesn’t hurt anymore does it? Mine don’t. They just sort of itch.” He draws back his sleeve to examine the rows of red dots, arranged in strange semi-circles up and down his arm. He scrubs at his forehead where he knows there are more. “I must look ridiculous.”

Karen snorts into her beer and says, “Don’t worry, Princess. You’re still the prettiest guy here.” Sam decides he likes the way that sounds, even if she _does_ refuse to stop calling him princess, and he deliberately bumps their shoulders together. His timing is bad and he makes her spill all over her elbow, but she steals his drink in retaliation and it doesn’t matter after that.

On the way out of the bar later Sam feels warm and comfortable, and maybe not _quite_ happy but as close as he’s gotten since Dean disappeared. When Karen links arms with him it just feels right to turn and kiss her, wrap himself around her tiny frame and hold tight. She tastes like the dark beer they’ve been drinking, and she kisses him right back.

Until she stops, pulls away with a laugh and says, “Woah there, watch the hands, dude.”

In the morning they’re both a little bit hung over and a little bit cranky, but they pack their stuff and hit the road anyway. Sam tries to apologize, and Karen won’t let him. Just smiles from behind delicate sunglasses that _have_ to be part of the new Karen, because Sam’s never seen them before.

“I didn’t mind, dude. Really. It just… would’ve been a bad idea.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, a little sadly. “Yeah, it would.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They’re near the Roadhouse when a job goes poorly, and it’s a good thing they’re close. Not pixies this time, but goblins, nastier than the lore gives them credit for, and Sam takes three long, angry claws straight across the chest. The cuts go scary deep, and Karen barely drives fast enough for Jo and Ellen to help patch him up. Sam is drugged high but still not surprised to learn that both of them have EMT training. World like this, bar like theirs, it only makes sense, and he fades unconscious as the sun comes up.

Two days go by before Sam is able to carefully haul his own ass out of bed and wander the bar. He sees Jo and Karen at a table in the corner, expressions serious and conversation intent. They both see him at the same time and look simultaneously away. He doesn’t want to interrupt, especially if they’re talking about him, so instead he wanders outside and then lets Ash tell him in great detail how he hasn’t found any sign of Dean.

It’s another week before Sam is in any shape to spend hours in a car and not regret it. In that time he steers clear whenever he sees the two girls in conversation, even when it’s all easy smiles and high laughter. Because Karen has been putting up with him nonstop since they teamed up. The Roadhouse is the only place she really gets any space to herself, and if she and Jo have gotten close then so much the better.

He sees Jo crying once, a moment he definitely wasn’t supposed to witness. Karen gives her an awkward hug in an attempt at comfort, and Sam feels a twinge of guilt in his gut. He’s almost certain those tears are for Dean, and his failure burns that much hotter at realizing he’s not the only one feeling how that piece is missing.

It irritates him just a little. Because there's no way Jo can begin to comprehend the size of the hole it leaves in Sam, not really, but that doesn’t change the fact that he should have found Dean by now. Should have, and hasn’t, and ‘might still’ is getting farther away with each passing week.

When they head back on the road again, Jo gives them a look he can’t read and disappears through the door without waving goodbye.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

One night Sam says the words aloud. That he’s starting to give up hope. He feels a little sick for having spoken the words, but Karen looks at him with quiet understanding.

“It’s been _months_ , and all I’ve got of Dean is his car and all his shit in the back seat.” He swallows hard and rubs at his face, stares at the splotchy blue comforter beneath him. “I know _he_ wouldn’t give up yet. I _know_ it, but it’s starting to feel ridiculous.”

He expects her to pat his head and look at him with pity. Maybe try to talk some sense into him, gently convince him to let go and move on. But there’s no pity in her eyes, and when she finally speaks it’s not what he’s expecting.

“It’s okay to hang on, Sam.” She moves to sit beside him on the bed, drawing her knees up. Her face is determined. “He’s still out there. And we’re going to find him, I can feel it.” She reaches out and sets a hand on his arm, warm and reassuring. “In the meantime, we just keep doing what we’re doing. Hunting and listening. There’s plenty of space in the car for Dean’s shit, right?”

Sam sighs, thick and dark and swimming in guilt, and leans back against the headboard.

“I wish you could meet him. You’re just his type.”

That earns him a quirked eyebrow, half a smirk and she says, “Which means what, exactly?”

“You’re hot. You dig his car. That’s two major requirements met.” He says it with a small smile, feeling a little bit warm and a little bit calmer with knowing he doesn’t have to give up yet. She laughs quietly and draws her hand away, cocking her head to the side to watch him.

“I miss him,” he says, the words whispering out of him of their own volition.

“I know,” says Karen, and then her face falls deep and serious so fast that he wonders if smiles can get whiplash. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“Why are you sorry?”

She chews on her lip for a moment before answering, “Because I haven’t figured it out. Because I’m supposed to be helping you find him, and you still don’t know where he is. That’s why you let me come along in the first place.”

“Karen, no.” He sits up, takes her hand and stares her down. “It’s not like that anymore.”

“I know. It still feels like I lied to you. Like I’m lying to you every time I tell you not to give up hope.”

“You’re not lying to me.”

“You don’t know that.” The words are too quiet, send little chills along his spine, but the look in her eyes is open and raw. Sam finally has to look away, scoots until a few inches separate them and leans less dramatically against the headboard.

“When we find him…” when, not if, because Sam isn’t ready to face the other possibility. “What are you going to do?”

“I… hadn’t really thought about it.” Her startled eyes tell him it's the truth, and he tries hard to smile as he works up his nerve.

“You could stay. With us.” It comes out steady, echoing with quiet hope and saying a hell of a lot more than the words themselves.

Karen smiles and looks a little sad and says, “That would be nice.”

Sam can’t tell what he’s supposed to get out of her response, and it dawns on him that he knows nothing about the life he’s keeping her from, dragging her around like he is.

“How come you never tell me about yourself?” he asks, not able to keep the question in once it occurs to him. “I don’t know anything about your family, or what you would do if you weren’t doing this.”

“Doesn’t really matter now.” Karen draws back in on herself, closes off just enough to make Sam wish he weren’t curious. “They’re gone, and I _am_ doing this, and there’s no place else for me to be.”

“Yeah, but… don’t you think it would help? Talking about them?”

“Sammy, please. You’ve been so good at not pushing me, don’t start now. I’m not ready to talk about that stuff.”

Sam shuts up and kind of really understands. He remembers not wanting to talk about Jess. Not even with Dean, and Dean was his own brother, knew as close to everything as anyone ever could. It’s not until an hour later that he realizes she called him Sammy, and he decides maybe it’s a silly thing to be hung up on after all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Broad daylight in southern Wyoming, birds and bugs making the usual quiet ruckus from the bushes surrounding the parking lot, and Sam kisses Karen again. No bar this time, and neither of them draws back to put a stop to things as they grow frantic and eager.

A pointed cough from behind Sam is what finally separates them. The mother of a small family two rooms over gives them a pointed look as she stops covering her son’s eyes and drags him in the opposite direction.

Sam tries to backpedal later, put some distance back between them, and isn’t all that surprised when Karen puts her foot down and calls bullshit. Problem is, he’s not sure how to explain it to her. That it’s all him, that everything he touches dies and he can’t bear to see it happen again.

“I see what you’re doing,” she bristles, pokes him in the chest. “You don’t get to make this call for me. You don’t get to just _decide_ I’m not taking this risk. I goddamn _know_ you feel it, too.”

Sam refuses to meet her eyes, only manages to say, “I can’t.” He watches her storm off across the street and draws in a shaky breath.

It’s early yet, and there are witnesses to interview. Sam does it himself, because she’ll come back once she’s cooled off. He has to lay on the extra charm, compensate for his lack of patently harmless female companion. The information he gets is good but not great, and he returns to the hotel to wait for Karen’s return.

Except she doesn’t come back all afternoon, and by sundown Sam can’t ignore the worry churning his stomach into pulp. He calls her cell, bought before they went on their first real hunt, and gets no answer. He doesn’t bother leaving a voicemail. Just sits up all night, back stiff against the carved, wooden headboard and arms wrapped around his knees.

Sometime just before dawn it starts to rain, and Sam listens to the downpour beat against the window. It’s still dark with storm when the door slips open, just after sunup, and Karen steps back into the room. She looks soaked and sorry, as if it’s only just occurred to her that Sam might be freaked out by her absence.

He unfolds from his huddle, legs falling flat along the unmade sheets, and stares at the tiny figure dripping waterfalls over the floor.

“Hey,” Karen says awkwardly.

“Hey,” Sam says back, but his voice is quiet and warm and relieved.

There’s an obvious second of hesitation, quickly conquered as Karen crosses the room, hikes herself onto the bed and straddles Sam’s lap, irrespective of the soggy mess she makes of both bed and occupant.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers when she leans close.

“Shut up.” And she kisses him, delicate hands sliding into his hair as she presses close. The morning passes in a blur of slick skin and hungry kisses, hands memorizing the contours of each others’ bodies and lips desperate with heat. Sam learns what Karen's legs feel like wrapped around him in an urging embrace, ankles hard against his back. He groans into the skin of her neck when he comes.

They eventually move to the dry bed and nod off, and the middle of the afternoon finds them slow to wake and still wrapped around each other. Sam laughs softly into her hair when he notices that Karen is still out, drowning in the t-shirt he threw to the ground six hours ago. She must have pulled it on while he slept, and the shirt looks huge, ridiculous on her small frame.

Sam smirks when she blinks groggily awake, and kisses her forehead before he goes to take a shower. He sees her roll right back over and close her eyes as he shuts the bathroom door behind him, surprised at how light he feels.

Because it’s the morning after, or afternoon anyway, and she’s still warm and there and alive, and Sam thinks maybe he can do this after all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They don’t bother with separate beds after that, because Karen looks at him and asks, “Seriously, why?” They keep hunting, keep searching in between, thanks to that stubborn ember of hope Sam isn’t ready to let die just yet.

And one day Sam says, “I love you.”

She doesn’t say it back, but her face cracks instantly into a wide, goofy grin, and he decides that’s a response he can deal with. He starts saying it a hell of a lot more often, just to see that look.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Karen has been in his life for a year, and he’s been introducing her as his girl for more of it than not, when Sam comes to a decision he thought he’d never reach again.

He doesn’t buy a ring. Because he’s smarter than that, and more than suspects she’ll run for it if he comes at this the wrong way. It will take tactics, patience and possibly a crowbar, but Sam knows with 20x20 certainty that he has to try.

He attacks in the middle of an afternoon, research spread across the bed between them.

“So I’ve been thinking.” He knows she’ll recognize his very-serious voice, and he doesn’t look up when the sound of ruffling papers tells him she’s set her work aside.

“Usually a bad idea,” she points out, something he can’t quite read echoing behind the words, when he doesn’t immediately continue. “And?”

“And I don’t want to hunt forever. For awhile longer, yeah. There’s shit I can’t walk away from, and I can’t give up on Dean yet, but…” he trails off and swallows past the nervous lump in his throat. “Anyway, I want to stop hunting someday. And find somewhere safe to start a family and…” He stops again, twists his fingers around in his lap for a minute before finally, _finally_ getting the words out, barely above a whisper. “Karen, will you marry me?”

When he finally looks up, she’s frozen halfway through reaching out for him. Her eyes are wide with surprise, and her jaw hangs low. It’s about what he expected, and he actually smiles in quiet amusement when the shock persists.

“You don’t have to answer right now,” he quickly assures. “I don’t _want_ you to until you’re sure. Just… think about it?”

She doesn’t respond, of course. Sam wasn’t expecting her to, doesn’t have his hopes set on an answer any time soon either, and he lets it go. He knows she'll think about it, and if he pushes, he all but guarantees she’ll shoot him down.

Sam's not always good at the game of waiting patiently, but when it matters this much, he's a pro.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Karen starts to withdraw in the weeks that follow, Sam doesn’t fight her on it. He knows he’s just dropped a big one on her, and she needs to process and figure things out. Hell, for all he knows she’s already married, and the thought turns his insides to goo for two straight days.

It's not long after when Karen starts disappearing on him for hours at a time. She always leaves a note, or tells him she's heading out. "Just taking a walk," is all she says when he asks, and he finds himself perpetually torn between frustrated and terrified. She's never gone longer than she predicts, but she starts to wear a quietly haunted look in her eye that freezes the blood in his veins.

Eventually, Sam makes an excuse to visit the Roadhouse. He’s sure there won’t be anything new and useful to learn, either about Dean or a potential hunt, but he wants to put Jo and Karen in the same space again. He hopes talking to someone not _him_ will help, because Karen has drawn so far away in the past couple weeks that he can barely see her through the murky haze of things that are eating at her.

As they pull up into the gravel pit that serves as a parking lot, Karen levels a serious look at him and says, “I know what you’re doing. And you don’t have to, I’m fine.”

“Look, I don’t… I don’t want you to think I’m being impatient.” Because that’s not what this is, and he’s not sure when he started to be this freaked out by the fact that she isn’t telling him _anything_ anymore. “But I’m worried about you, and I know you can’t talk to me about what’s bothering you or you would have by now, and this--”

“It’s not what you think,” she cuts in, voice quick and a little bit off.

“What?”

“It’s not… Sam, I’ve been thinking about what you said. I have. But that’s not what--”

“I want you to stay,” he cuts her off. Doesn’t mean to interrupt, but he suddenly needs to say it before the world crashes down around him.

“Huh?” Her eyes find him, her face befuddled.

“If you’re going to say no, I don’t want you to think you have to leave. I want you to stay.”

“Sam…”

“I love you.”

But this time the words don’t win him the instantaneously wide grin of every previous repetition. This time the smile is small and weak, and maybe even a little bit scared. But it’s there, and Sam tries not to feel terrified as his hands go clammy on the wheel.

“I love you, too,” she whispers.

Sam gapes. Whatever else he might’ve been expecting from this train wreck of a conversation, _that_ wasn’t on the list. He can’t find words or sense or anything else through the shock. She turns and looks at the Roadhouse directly ahead of them.

“Let’s just get out of here,” she says, and Sam doesn’t really know what to say.

So he silently complies. Just picks a direction and they go, and Sam recognizes the tingle in his stomach as hope. He wishes like hell she would talk to him, but she said the words, and Sam realizes just that moment how grateful he is to finally hear them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They drive straight through the night and stop at a coffee shop with a pile of local newspapers the next day. A quick search finds them a potential hunt, then a convenient hotel to crash out in.

The first day of their investigation passes uneventfully as they narrow their search down to an anonymous corpse in an unmarked grave somewhere north of town. Their hotel is crappy as ever, most of their research has them digging through old missing persons reports and obits in the library, and Sam pretends it doesn’t bother him to see Karen so quiet while they work. When she disappears for three hours on day two, he just holds her close when she comes back and can't think of anything to say.

On day three, buried in a binder of death certificates lifted from the county courthouse, Sam finally finds the answer.

When his “Aha! Here we go!” gets no response, he looks up and sees Karen asleep in her own pile of the research, spread all across the bed amidst old newspapers and crumpled paper.

He decides not to wake her. It’s the middle of the night, and she hasn’t been all that successful at hiding how tired she’s been lately. Sam doesn’t blame her. Whatever it is she’s not talking to him about, whether it’s his offer or something from her past, it doesn’t surprise him that she hasn’t been sleeping well. The grave is in a tiny cemetery, unmarked but beneath a giant willow, and he knows this will be an easy one. So he leaves her a note and heads into the night to salt and burn the bones himself.

When he gets back to the room, dragging mud and dirt and a little bit of ectoplasm with him over the threshold, the sun is coming up and he’s carrying coffee. The room is empty, which sends his heart into a moment of stuttering panic before he sees that his note has been flipped over and recycled.

“Gone for a walk. Back for dinner,” it reads, in Karen’s soft, sloping script. Which could mean either lunch or supper, and either way she won’t be back for hours. But if she needs that much time alone and away from him, Sam tells himself he doesn’t mind. He drinks both coffees, because hers will just get cold, and dives into the menial tasks that follow a successful hunt.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

At two that afternoon, Sam has just finished packing up a load of laundry to take down the street when the door opens and the impossible steps through it. The laundry bags flop from his startled hands and he whispers, “Dean!” in a disbelieving breath.

“Sammy.” Dean's voice sounds small and wrong.

“Christo,” says Sam, taking a cautious step forward. But Dean just keeps staring at him, and even if his brother _had_ gotten himself possessed, Sam knows he would have heard about it. They've certainly spent enough time at the Roadhouse in the past year. Which means there’s nothing to combat the surge of pure relief at the sight of _Dean_ , whole and alive and real.

It takes another five minutes of staring, Dean just standing there staring right back, before Sam manages to shake free of his shocked stupor. Once his limbs again acknowledge his commands, he strides straight over and wraps Dean in an enormous hug.

The touch makes Dean go instantly stiff in his arms, but Sam clings, all stubborn relief, until Dean relaxes and returns the gesture.

“God, Dean, where have you _been_?!” Sam’s voice is a harsh whisper against his brother’s ear, and he chokes on an upsurge of every fear he’s felt in the ragged months since Dean’s disappearance. “I thought you were _dead_ , I thought--”

“Easy, tiger,” Dean says, slips automatically into protective mode and soothes the cascade of too many warring emotions. He pats Sam on the back and runs fingers through his hair, all calm reassurance that he’s right here, and Sam finally manages to breathe.

When he finally lets go, it’s to move for the window and glance outside, sheepishly rubbing his eyes dry. He knows the grin that spreads across his face is wide and stupid, but he also knows he doesn’t give a shit how ridiculous he looks. Dean is back, the raw edges of the world smoothing out with his return, and Karen will walk in any minute now and see it was all worth it. The moment is too thick, too much, too goddamn perfect, and Sam doesn't even try to meet his brother's eyes.

“There’s someone you have to meet,” he says instead, tries to keep the shiver of too much relief out of his voice as he brushes the curtain further aside and scans the street. “She’s not here right now, but she’ll be back soon. I… Dean, I asked her to marry me. You’ll _really_ like her, man. She--”

“Sam, will you _stop_ already?” Dean cuts him off, eyes red and voice wrecked when Sam startles and stares at him. He stops short and watches Dean war with something inside his own skull.

“Dude, you okay?” Sam asks, approaching with quiet concern. “You look pale as hell. Maybe you should--”

“Karen’s not coming back, Sam,” Dean snaps.

And Sam's world tears to a ragged halt.


	2. Chapter 2

_-Stop-  
-Rewind-  
 **-Play Back-**_

The thing about getting turned into a woman is, one never sees it coming. The day it happens, Dean doesn't wake up feeling an inexplicable dread in his gut to properly herald the oncoming disaster. Everything is as normal as it can be, considering they're hunting ghost ships on the Great Lakes, small town boring all around them as they begin their investigation. It's early morning, Sam consolidating their research or something with papers strewn all over his bed, and Dean realizes that they're both woefully uncaffeinated. This is a crisis to be remedied, and he mumbles a groggy "coffee" as he digs in his jacket for one of the room keys.

"You want food or anything?" he thinks to ask on his way out. “I could see what they've got at the diner across the street.”

"No, just the coffee." Sam doesn't even bother glancing up from whatever the hell he's scribbling on the hotel stationary, and Dean pulls the door shut behind him.

 

Fifteen minutes later he nearly drops both newly purchased drinks when a _coyote_ , big and gray and sleek, emerges from a bush and glides right over to stare him down. And okay, they're so far north that maybe he can buy the whole coyote thing. Except that he's standing in a tiny park behind a gas station, half a block from what passes for downtown Escanaba, and aren't coyotes supposed to live in the _woods_?

Dean freezes in something like wonder, two feet between him and the furred front paws, and wondering if Michigan coyotes eat people. It blinks at him a couple times, and then shimmers in a very un-coyote-like way before stepping straight out of its own skin like it's the most natural thing to do.

He stands before Dean on two legs, looking completely human and more than a little not. Dean resists the urge to whistle, because whatever this dude is, he's _pretty_. Thin and smooth, draped in delicate white hair and wearing something that shimmers with shadow even in the bright morning sun.

A smirk tinged with something darker sends Dean a cautious step back, and he asks, "What are you?"

The smirk widens, sinister glee sparkling in sunless eyes. "Why would I give away the punch-line when we're just getting started?" the man asks, and his voice sends chills down Dean's spine.

"Because I'm asking nicely? And while you're at it, why don't you tell me what it is you want."

"Ah, now _that_ part is easy. I want you to entertain me, Dean Winchester."

Dean swallows back the surprise at his name and slips into his best cheeky grin. "Sorry, dude, but my daddy taught me not to play with strangers."

"That's cute. You think you have any choice in the matter." The man points a long, pale finger across the park, at a bench over by a battered seesaw, and Dean feels more than minutely compelled to go take a seat. The fact that he doesn't like this guy does nothing to stop him sitting on the creaking wood and chipping paint, his jaw clenched tight.

"Nice trick," he says, eyes tracking his newfound antagonist across the playground to the worn patch of dirt immediately before him. "Still not grasping the point."

"I want to make you a wager."

"Not interested, thanks."

"You don't even want to know what the stakes are?"

"Not particularly."

"That's too bad, considering you forfeit _everything_ if you don't play."

"That's not how a bet works," Dean protests, quiet dread sinking steady into his stomach.

"That's how _this_ bet works. My rules. Are you ready to play nice?"

Dean grinds his teeth, glowers, finally snarls, " _Fine_. What are the stakes?"

"Sam Winchester's life."

Dean's eyes go wide and furious, and he growls a menacing "Fuck you," wishing he could stand and try to rip the asshole's throat open. His rage is impotent, and he lets loose with a string of inarticulate curses, stopping only when he realizes the man's face has slipped into an expression of ecstasy, creepy on such delicate features. Another moment passes before those eyes open and sparkle down at him.

"That was lovely. Truly. But buttering me up won't do you any good. Are you ready to discuss this like grown-ups now?"

Dean swallows back bile and nods, a quick jerk of reluctant movement.

"Excellent." When the man snaps his fingers, the world empties into agony. Whatever bonds held Dean to the park bench moments before, they're not enough to keep him there now. He falls to the dirt and can't scream through the shattered burn engulfing him, because even his vocal chords are on fire.

It stops as suddenly as the snap that began it, but Dean huddles in on himself for long, ragged seconds before coaxing himself upright. The pain has passed without a trace, but his whole body feels off, wrong, a strange numbness leaking slowly away as he raises his eyes to see the enemy towering over him.

"What did you do?" he asks, and his voice is completely wrong. High and shrill and feminine, and he catches the amused smirk in his peripheral vision as he glances down in a panic and realizes just why his body feels wrong.

"Cheer up, little girl." The man cackles as Dean staggers to his feet and backs away. "I just made a few necessary changes. All for the sport, naturally."

Dean half trips on an enormous pant leg and lands hard on the wooden bench behind him. It takes every iota of stubborn focus to keep the panic at bay and resist the urge to hyperventilate, and the man keeps right on talking.

"It's really to your advantage. That's the point of the game, you see. To make yourself the woman in your brother's life. Imagine how much harder it would be with your own face."

"You're _insane_."

"Not insane. Fond of sculpted chaos. Discord is such a beautiful playground, and your souls are just _full_ of it. Oh, this is going to be indescribably good!" The thing goes suddenly somber. "There are a couple of ground rules, of course."

"Of course," Dean whispers, staring at his hands, small and shaking.

"You must tell no one who you really are. You must not act to inform your brother or anyone else that Dean Winchester is alive. You must not attempt other means for reversing the transformation I've wrought on your flesh. Defy any of these terms, and you forfeit the wager, which makes Sam's life mine."

"And if I succeed?"

"Then Sam lives, free from my claim and under what small protection I can offer against the things that haunt you."

Dean looks up sharply, sees a white eyebrow quirk challengingly as if to say 'where is the fun if the risk is all yours?'

"So to win," Dean says, feels his gut clench at the reality he needs to voice. "I have to seduce my brother?"

"It's not nearly that simple, my dear," the man says, tone gentle and mocking. "You can't just make him _want_ you. He has to _love_ you. Completely. There _is_ another requirement, but half the fun is seeing if you can figure it out for yourself."

Dean chokes back a whine that it isn't _fair_ , because none of this is fair and it would be stupid to start complaining now. He seethes, feels nausea stab thick at his belly, and his eyes burn embarrassingly wet when he raises them to meet that mercilessly gleeful look.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks, and against all probability the mirthful expression softens into something almost sympathetic.

"I had a brother once. And I _had_ him once, if you catch my meaning. I think, perhaps, I see something of myself in you, Dean Winchester. Make it good for me."

A step and a shimmer and suddenly Dean is again staring a coyote straight in the eyes. It twirls and swishes its tail along its self-satisfied retreat, and a second later it's just Dean again. Alone and silent and _wrong_ in a ratty playground, wearing clothes a million sizes too big and drowning in the panic of 'what now?'

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When the world stops spinning long enough for him to concentrate, Dean forces everything aside and focuses on what comes next. First things first, he can't keep wearing these clothes. A glance at his reflection in a storefront window confirms that he looks like a total freak, everything hanging huge off of him, an outfit that Sam will recognize in a heartbeat.

He pulls the leather cord of his talisman off over his head, deliberately ignoring the chill of how wrong it feels to be missing the familiar weight from his chest. It goes straight into his pocket beside the ring that slides right off his suddenly tiny finger, both too identifiable to risk anyone getting a glimpse of them, and he ducks his way down the street and into a small consignment boutique with its low prices brandished at the street. He can only buy what he has cash for, can't risk Sam hacking his way through credit card receipts to someone that can tell him about the strange young woman who came in drowning in men's clothing and glancing dodgily over her shoulder every five minutes.

The place is packed floor to ceiling with used clothes and other odds and ends, and Dean has no idea where to start. He ignores the bemused glances from the cash register, picks a rack and dives in. The hours it takes him to figure out what fits, and to pick out half a dozen affordable outfits entirely at random, give him time to sort out his next moves.

When he leaves he has a small purple duffel stuffed with his purchases. His wallet and other identifiables are all rolled tight in a sock at the bottom, and his remaining cash is stuffed in the back pocket of a pair of jeans that fit almost right. His shirt hangs huge and baggy off him, a ridiculous rooster logo emblazoned across his chest. His feet squish around in tennis shoes a size and a half too big, and he steels himself to start all over again, because consignment shops don't sell underwear.

He thinks about tossing his clothes in a dumpster, but in the end he burns them instead. It's stupid, and paranoid, but he can't bring himself to risk that Sam might look in just the right place and figure out his brother _didn't_ just vanish into the ether. He stands in a parking lot and watches the fire burn down, and he can't help thinking there's some twisted symbolism to be found in his actions.

He examines himself in a gas station mirror after that, and what he sees is newly disconcerting. He _looks_ like a woman. Like a perfectly normal, badly dressed, _woman_. He's all around petite, unimpressive boobs, tiny hands and fingers. He's got dark eyes and grubby fingernails. He's pretty enough, but _he_ wouldn't do the woman he sees staring back at him.

His hair is short, brown and not too curly, a combination for which he's relieved and a little bit grateful. His hair has never been much longer than the spikes he wears it in, and a long mess of curls would have left him lost and useless. As it is, he's already got no idea if there's some fancy shampoo he ought to be buying.

He doesn't. A brush and a pack of hair ties, and he'll goddamn _make_ it work. There's also the terrifying spectrum of other girlish hygiene with which he doesn't want to deal. He shoplifts most of the stuff he'll need, because that shit is _expensive_ , and vows to figure it out later.

The library is closed for the night by the time Dean is finally confident that his appearance won't draw undue attention. Step two has to wait until it reopens in the morning, which leaves him reluctantly shelling out the cash for a hotel room on the far edge of town. It's probably the rattiest place he's ever stayed, which is in itself a testament to the sickly mottled wallpaper and the unpleasant crunch of gray carpet. He sleeps badly, in his clothes on top of the covers rather than sliding between the sketchy sheets, and his dreams echo with images of his brother's corpse.

He wakes in a cold sweat, and for once can't get to the research fast enough. He foregoes coffee, calls a Snickers bar breakfast, and keeps his eyes wide just in case, ready to duck instantly out of sight with each careful step. But his path is Sam free. He claims a computer in the back and drops into the chair with a sigh of relief. _This_ , at least, is familiar.

Four hours of research brings him to a single, inescapable answer to his question. The discord, the profanity, the incest; it all points to one name. A name that's a long way from home and has no place wandering around Michigan wearing the face of a coyote, though Dean can appreciate a trickster's irony in that.

But the name he finds belongs to a demigod, and that means he's screwed. This mess isn't a spell to be broken. It's a curse, and there isn't a damn thing he can do. 'You don't stop a curse,' he'd said once, 'You get out of its way.' And goddamned if it wasn't true then, and isn't still, and Dean realizes he's completely trapped. The only way out of this is _through_ , which leaves him playing by impossible rules, with his brother's life as the stakes to a bet he never intended to make.

 

He takes a week to adapt to his new body before deliberately 'bumping into' Sam, using the time to get his ass into a lot bars, ones with pool tables, to practice his game. The angles are all off and his reach is crap, but he figures out how to compensate well enough to hustle, which is what he needs. He needs cash now, needs to be able to pull his own weight once he gets to Sam.

The hardest step, and the real reason it takes him a full week to approach Sam, is that he needs a story his brother will believe, a story that'll explain why he's got nothing but a duffel and a few clothes and why he knows anything at all about hunting. More importantly, he needs a story that will make Sam let him come along and stick close. The yarn he comes up with is a whole lot of implausible, but he's ready to make it work.

And after all his careful preparation, he nearly misses Sam entirely. When he sees Sam across the parking lot, the jerk is about to climb in _Dean's_ car and drive away into the morning, and it's only Dean's quick, brilliant thinking that gets Sam into the diner and talking to him.

"Thanks," he mumbles at the waitress's retreating back, and drinks his coffee quickly. He knows Sam is watching him, carefully cataloging and taking in the appearance of the seemingly oblivious woman across the booth, and Dean deliberately takes the time to drain half the mug. When he puts it down Sam waits patiently for the requisite explanation.

Dean suddenly has no idea where to start, too much mess and too many things he can't afford to say, and _he_ wouldn't believe the story he's about to try and sell. He stares at his hands and wills them to still around the mug. He doesn't speak.  
"So," Sam finally breaks into the silence. "You obviously know who _I_ am. Who are you?"

"Karen," says Dean. That's the easy part, and he spares an upward glance before dropping his eyes resolutely to his mug. "My name is Karen. And no, I don't. Know who you are, I mean. Not really." Here's where it gets murkier, where Dean has to watch himself carefully, has to keep from revealing too much but give enough away to draw his brother in to Karen's utterly fictitious plight.

"You said you'd been having dreams about me," Sam coaxes. Dean recognizes the well-practiced harmless reassurance in the voice even as he refuses to raise his eyes. "Tell me about them," Sam presses gently.

"I can never remember much." Dean takes a slower sip of coffee. "Just… your face. Your name. That car. Lots of pieces that come and go before I can really put my finger on them." And god, he can practically taste the bullshit on his tongue, but Sam is staring at him all earnest intent, and that's a good sign.

"How did you find me?"

"Accident? I thought I was going crazy when I saw you from the road just now. I almost didn't come talk to you."

"Why did you?" Sam's voice is so carefully kind that Dean wants to reach across the table, smack him upside the head and tell him to lighten up.

"I know there are… _things_ out there," he says instead. "Monster things. Stuff that's not supposed to exist, only it does. Ghosts and curses and… other stuff. I even know how to end some of them."

"How?" Sam asks, surprise and disbelief evident through the cautious neutral of his voice.

"My dad." Dean can't help biting his lower lip at the words. "He hunted that shit. Taught me everything he could before he went and got himself killed trying to save someone that didn't deserve it." It's as much a lie as the rest of his story, but after everything that's happened, it hurts like too much truth.

"I'm sorry," says Sam, and Dean wants to punch him for the pity in his voice.

"Doesn't matter. It was a long time ago." He slips into a deep pause, gears himself up because if the next part doesn't sound real he's screwed. He drops his voice lower and tells Sam about the fire that took Karen's family, and her subsequent flight.

"Why would you think you were in danger?" Sam asks.

Dean's brain races, because he hadn't thought Sam would want to know _that_ , but it fits well enough with everything else and he swallows past the panic.

"Because I dreamed it," he says before he's even finished thinking about the question. He follows the statement up with a bark of incredulous laughter, and he feels his tone slip manic as the words spill unrehearsed from his mouth. "Before it happened, I mean. And they were supposed to be just dreams, but then they weren't anymore. I've been hitching rides anywhere else ever since. And then I started dreaming _your_ face. And there was this sense of urgency and your name, and it can't be a coincidence that I just _found_ you like this, right?" God, if Sam doesn't buy this Dean _knows_ they're jacked, and the terror in his face isn't as much a deliberate front as he'd like.

"Okay, first? Breathe." A reassuring hand settles over Dean's own, clenched as it is against the table. Sam gives it a squeeze and then continues, "Now. What else can you tell me about these dreams?"

"I… I don't know." Dean scrabbles for things he remembers of Sam's visions, realizes his brother has never given him all that much detail. "They hurt like hell. And they don't make any real kind of sense, just bits and pieces. But I have to go with you."

"I'm sorry, but that's not possible," says Sam, and Dean's heart sinks to his toes. "It's too dangerous. I hunt those things you were talking about. And right now I'm… I have to find someone, and I can't do that if I'm trying to watch out for you."

"Your brother," Dean says, desperate enough to gamble because the look in Sam's eyes is five seconds from the door.

The hand over his own tightens in an instant from reassuring pressure to intimidating grip, but Dean doesn't so much as flinch. Sam looses his hold and draws slowly back, and in a carefully measured tone he asks, "How do you know that?"

"I told you. Bits and pieces. I can help you find him. I don't know how, but I know. I think you need me." He looks up, and up again because he's got farther to go to meet Sam's eyes from this height. "Please."

"Karen—"

"My family is dead, _something_ is after me, and the only clue I have is this dream telling me I have to stick close to you." He reaches out and closes insistent fingers around his brother's wrist. "I can help. Sam, please, you have to let me come with you."

"All right. Okay. Yes. But you do as I say the _second_ I say it, even if it sounds stupid or crazy. I'm not getting you killed."

"You mean it? I can come?"

"Yeah. If you were one of the bad guys your story would suck less."

"Shut up," Dean mutters, fails at fighting back the relieved grin and doesn't even spare a thought for the familiarity in the words. Sam returns the smile, apparently contagious, and leads the way to the car.

"You need to stop and pick anything up from your hotel or something?"

"Nope. This is it." He points to the duffel and gives an enigmatic smile. Sam looks like he's been kicked in the stomach, but he opens the door like a proper gentleman for the lady, closes it behind.

Dean takes his first real breath in a week and slouches back in the seat, grateful and terrified and willfully not thinking about everything that comes next.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

During the first awkward hour on the road Dean almost gives himself away three times, barely restraining the hand that wants to reach instinctively for the box of cassettes Karen has no reason to know about. The road is flat and boring, and in his peripheral vision he can see his brother struggling to think of something to say. He knows this is where a normal girl would start making small talk, play the getting-to-know-you game with the guy letting her ride shotgun.

But he doesn't dare make up any of the harmless details to go along with his already fabricated story. Sam let him in the car, but he's too smart _not_ to be suspicious of the purportedly psychic girl that ran up to him in the middle of an empty parking lot. Dean knows his brother is on guard and will catch the slightest inconsistency.

So he stares at the road, fights not to fidget in his seat, and finally says, "Your car is awesome, dude."

"It's my brother's," Sam admits.

Which makes Dean a little proud, and as he strokes his baby's dashboard he can't resist saying, "Then your brother's a stud."

Sam laughs out loud at that, asks him not to say anything to Dean when they find him. Dean figures he ought to be offended when his brother tells some chick he doesn't even know that his brother is a cocky bastard, but he can't swallow a dry laugh, low in his throat and still too high, at the fond bemusement in Sam's tone. He barely refrains from the grateful groan when Sam points out the box of cassettes, and takes his time flipping through them.

He hesitates to decide on anything, ponders searching the radio for something poppy and generic instead. But he finally decides against it, because if he hasn't given himself away by now his musical preferences aren't likely to do it. He slides a battered copy of _Houses of the Holy_ into the tape deck, cranks the volume down a second too late, and reminds himself to breathe.

A new problem hits him twenty minutes later, a disaster of fairly epic proportions just waiting to happen, and he tenses in his seat. He told Sam he knows how to hunt, which is one hundred percent pure and total truth. But Dean doesn't know this body. He doesn't know how fast it can move, how much pain it can take, how to _use_ it, and that's a recipe for getting both of them killed. And much as it pains Dean to concede weakness, not getting Sam killed is the whole point of this charade, so he swallows the embarrassment, braces himself for his brother's irritation, and asks for help.

He expects his brother to be annoyed at his request, maybe even angry. He doesn't expect him to nearly pull off the road, and he certainly doesn't expect the barely restrained fury in his brother's voice when he says, "You said you knew how to hunt."

"Yeah, but… it's been a long time, okay?" Dean is grasping, and knows he's about two seconds from feeling the car pull over and being told quite politely to get out and hitch a ride elsewhere. "And it's not like I ever had to _use_ any of the shit my dad taught me. I just don't know how good I'm still gonna be."

He watches Sam take a series of deep breaths, sees him gearing up to turn around and drive right back to that parking lot an hour and a half behind them, and Dean can't let that happen. Finding Sam again will cost too much time, might be useless when he finally _does_ because how will he explain his persistence? If Sam ditches him now, he's got _no_ idea how he'll manage to get close enough to make this work.

"Look," he jumps in before Sam can open his mouth. "I know you want to find your brother fast. I'm not asking you to put everything on hold to make me into a fighting machine, and I promise I'll stay out of the way until I know what I'm doing." He's babbling and he knows it, not even trying to keep the terror out of his voice because just maybe Sam won't be able to leave him behind if he's worried enough, and he presses desperately on. "I want to be able to help. Maybe when we stop—"

"Yeah, okay," Sam finally cuts in. Dean can hear the trepidation behind the words. He can see the gears winding themselves in his brother's head, all the ways this agreement is a bad idea. The grinding of Sam's teeth is practically audible, and Dean finally reaches out and turns the music up to just shy of deafening.

He's going to have to tread carefully, because if Sam changes his mind he's lost. The interstate rolls beneath them and the world spins wildly just beyond Dean's peripheral vision. He fidgets in his seat, stares at the horizon, and tells himself he can do this.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

No one at Harvelle's knows a damn thing, and Dean tries to keep the expression of 'well duh' off his face when even Ellen just shrugs apologetically and offers them a couple of pints. Dean swallows back guilt at the deliberate deception and the pained look on Sam's face, because there's no way around it. Right now all he can worry about is sticking with Sam, not letting his brother drop him off somewhere safe 'for his own good' at the first opportunity.

He knows Sam, knows he already resents the fact that he's babysitting some helpless psychic when he needs to find his brother, and he knows the ice he's walking on is paper-thin. They both drink their beer in frustrated silence, ignoring the curious glances Jo keeps throwing them because Sam didn't bother explaining who Karen was. He tries to wait Sam out, but it feels like every eye in the bar is on him, seeing right through him, and he gets restless a third of the way through his beer.

"So. Now what, dude?" he asks. Regrets it almost immediately as Sam drops his head onto his hand and stares unseeing at the chipped surface of the bar.

"I don't know," he says, an edge of panic wrapping around the words.

He moves suddenly, dropping a twenty on the table and shoving his way to the exit so fast that Dean finds himself still sitting on the bar stool when the door slams shut behind Sam's retreating back. He knows Jo's eyes are on him, concerned, and he turns to throw wide eyes and a confused shrug across the room before hopping to the ground. It's a longer drop than he's used to, and he stumbles to regain his footing and his balance when his landing is a little off, then dashes his way to the door.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness once the door slams shut behind him, cutting off the noisy barroom chatter and leaving them alone with the crickets. The dull thump of an impact nearby has him moving before he's found Sam's silhouette in the shadows. A second one, closer as Dean approaches and catches sight of his brother's profile beside a sturdy oak, and the blow is accompanied by a frustrated growl. He sees Sam wind up for another punch, and reaches out to grab him by the wrist before he can do any more damage.

"Stop that, dumbass!" Dean barks, frustrated and furious even as he feels Sam's arm go limp in his hold. "That's not going to goddamn _help_."

"He's gone," Sam says, and his voice is rough with hurt and rage. "He's gone, and I don't have the first fucking clue where to look."

Dean just stares for a long moment, shocked into stillness by the intensity of the pain his slowly adjusting eyes can read on his brother's face. He knew Sam would be worried about him, knew his brother would come looking for him, hell he _knew_ his unexplained absence would hurt like hell. But the look on Sam's face is raw and ragged, and Dean wants to pull him close and tell him it's okay. What's one more lie in the mess they've been thrown into?

"We should go back to Michigan," he says instead. "Where I found you, that town with the weird-ass name--"

"Escanaba," Sam supplies numbly.

"Yeah. There. We should go back." He knows it's bullshit, but he has nothing else to offer. There's a handkerchief in his back pocket, and he takes it out and starts applying pressure to Sam's abused knuckles.

"There's no point. I searched for a week. He's not there. There wasn't even a trail to follow."

"But you've got his car, right?" Dean asks. He forces his voice calm and sure, imagines a confidence that has no point and no purpose but to try and get Sam past this moment. "So your best lead is still _there_. We could start searching in the surrounding counties and work our way out. Yeah?"

Sam settles little by little with each word, until Dean can see a dim spark of hope in his eyes.

"It's somewhere to start at least, right?" Dean presses, careful and gauging and not sure if any of this is actually helping, or if he's just postponing the inevitable meltdown.

"Yeah. Okay. We can do that," Sam finally says. His eyes are locked on the moon above, his lower lip chewed raw as Dean watches and prays he's doing the right thing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam is true to his word and starts Dean training almost immediately. The process sucks every bit as much as Dean expects, the small, slight body he's wearing all wrong for doing things that used to be easy. The guns aren't too bad, once he figures out how to cope with the kickback on his smaller frame. He can tell Sam breathes more easily when he's got the hang of it.

But hand-to-hand is a nightmare. He steps into a regular workout on day two of their search, but he knows it's never going to be enough. Every instinct is wrong now when he fights, incompatible with his size and new lack of muscle mass, and Sam knocks him on his ass over and over and _over_ again until even Sam decides they've got to try something different.

"You need to fight more defensively," Sam tells him on day five. "You keep attacking straight on, and it's not that you're doing anything _wrong_ , it's just… it's never going to be enough against a real opponent."

"No shit, dude," Dean mutters, ass planted firmly in the dirt and glaring at his brother seated cautiously beside him. "I still can't win against _you_."

"You shouldn't be thinking about it like that, winning and losing. You throw a good punch, and that'll come in handy when you've got the element of surprise. But it's more important that you know how to get loose of a grapple and out of range."

"You mean running away," says Dean, feeling ice settle in his stomach and the burn of frustration along his skin. Running away can't help him protect Sam, and isn't that the _point_?

"Retreat is a perfectly legitimate tactic," Sam points out, voice of reason and Dean wants to hit him. "I appreciate that you want to help, but you're just going to slow me down if I can't trust you to get yourself _out_ of danger instead of hurling yourself _into_ it."

Dean huffs in irritation, but Sam's words are too true to brush aside. He'll get his brother hurt or worse if he can't be careful of this new body, and the thought makes the ice in his gut sit heavier still.

"You're small and fast," Sam presses on, seemingly oblivious to the frustrated revelation dragging its way through Dean's head. "Those _aren't_ weaknesses, Karen. Let me help you focus on that for awhile, okay?" His tone is so gentle and deliberate that Dean finally rolls his eyes and stands back up.

"Christ, you're seriously worried about hurting my feelings. I'm not that fragile, okay? Lighten up, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

Dean's heart freezes right there in his chest, and he turns wide, startled eyes on his brother. Shit, shit, _shit_ , of all the ways to slip up and give himself away this might be the sloppiest, and he swallows hard and tries to think of something to say.

"Sorry," Sam mutters before he's gotten his proverbial feet back under him. "It's… a long story."

"Don't worry about it," says Dean, offering a hand up from the dirt and squinting into the sun to hide the relief writing itself all over his face. "Nothing wrong with long stories. Sam."

Karen is wearing sufficient bruises already, so they cut the sparring session off for the night, with a promise to think about what Sam said and be ready to try things a new way tomorrow.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As their search slowly expands its way outward, Dean stops trying so hard to pretend he's someone else. He's still careful, _always_ careful, not to slip so far he forgets that he isn't supposed to be Sam's brother. But they've developed a strange sort of rapport, Sam responding to Karen with an odd mix of fondness and exasperation, and Dean stops trying to rein in the little things he soon realizes aren't going to give him away.

It's not quite like having his brother back, and Dean is still willfully not thinking about what needs to come next, but the easy exchanges go a long way toward settling the ever-present unease in his chest. And if sometimes Dean just wants to hit his brother for treating him like a goddamn _girl_ , he learns to squash the impulse and the irritation both. He can't very well hold Sam's instincts against him in the face of reality.

He can, however, resent reality itself. Quite legitimately, especially when he gets his first period. Cramps knock him out for a whole day, and Sam hovers in concerned sympathy, bringing him Advil, coffee, a Twix from the vending machine. After that, it's just a matter of feeling _really_ disgusting for the next five days, belly still twisting itself up into knotted aches once in awhile and making words like 'hysterectomy' pop into his head even though he's not a hundred percent sure what it means.

Later the same week, Sam ambushes him with questions about Karen's dreams. The psychic ones, and Dean had shoved that part of his story to the back of his brain once it got him in the door. He takes the easy way out when Sam asks how old he is, picking an age that breaks Karen out of the pattern and trying to ask Sam all the right questions when he already knows the answers. He projects surprise at the right moments, calls his brother crazy, and goes back to sleep hoping it doesn't come up again.

When Sam tells him about the credit cards, Dean has to suppress the smug smile that threatens. He had started thinking about sending a handful of applications in himself, but wasn't sure how to explain the credit card fraud when he inevitably asked Sam to backtrack so he could pick them up. Sam barely blinks his discomfort at the illegality, obviously just concerned about making his new companion uncomfortable.

Dean shrugs easily, and lets a tiny smirk through. It's enough, and Sam relaxes visibly at the gesture.

"Do we need cash?" Dean asks. "We could hit one of those dives we passed on our way in."

"You want to go to a bar?" asks Sam, voice a little bit incredulous.

"Yeah. I can hustle a couple games, pool or poker or whatever they've got going."

"You know how to hustle." Sam's tone has gone from a little bit incredulous to outright disbelief, and Dean throws him an exasperated look.

"Told you, Dad taught me everything he could."

"If you know how to hustle, what were you doing hitching around Michigan with a duffel, a week's worth of clothes and no money?"

Dean is ready for this question, ready for the lie he needs to answer it with, and he steps close. Close enough that he has to tilt his head back, looking up, and up, and up to demonstrate how very small he is.

"Look at me," he says, propping his hands on delicate hips. "You think I'm stupid enough to go into that kind of bar alone? Let alone take people's money and expect to get out with my maidenly honor intact." Which he is, and he did, but there were some close calls and a lot of quick retreats and it was a relief to find Sam and not have to worry about that anymore.

"Sorry," Sam mumbles, and Dean watches his ears go red. "Wasn't really thinking. So, hustling, huh?"

Dean flashes a deliberate smirk and grabs Sam's hand, dragging him to the car and hopping into the passenger seat.

"And with a big, strong boy like you to ogle my back and remind me how long it's been since I played pool? Candy from babies." He throws Sam a look, knitting his eyebrows together in mock concern. "You _do_ know how to ogle, right?"

Dean already knows hustling is easier with his new, harmless stature, but with Sam watching his back it really is like taking candy from babies. He feels Sam's eyes on him the whole time, hears the extra bets being made, people walking right up to Sam and saying, "Your girlfriend's good, but she can't _possibly_ beat Jimmy. He's the best in town. You wanna put money on it?"

And Sam isn't ogling exactly, but he apparently means to take Dean's instructions quite literally, his eyes not leaving Dean's back all night. Even focused on the game, it puts him a little on edge. He's suddenly aware of the fact that his t-shirt is too baggy, his pants not quite long enough, his hair full of static and pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. He's supposed to be working his way into his brother's affections, and he can't banish the thought that there's no way Sam can like what he sees.

The evening ends more than two grand richer, something Dean's never pulled off without fisticuffs. Panicked insecurities aside, he feels less like a hopeless tag-along for Sam to barely put up with and more like a valid member of a team he hadn't even realized he was trying out for.

 

Not two days later Dean pushes new limits when they find themselves accidentally hunting a pushy spirit in Kenosha. He figures out where the body is buried less than a minute after Sam disappears to find donuts, and he suddenly needs to know he can do this himself. Sam will be pissed, but Dean doesn't quite care. He grabs extra salt, a new bottle of lighter fluid, the book of matches from the nightstand, and snakes a shovel from the shed behind the motel.

At the last second he thinks to leave a note, and deliberately crafts the careful swoops and strokes of a gratuitously girlish script, one he can remember and recreate when the occasion calls.

It's a quick walk, and a grave gone gradually shallow with shifting dirt, and Dean only gets knocked around a couple of times while he digs. Seeing the flames erupt from the coffin sends satisfied shivers along his spine, the reassurance that he can still do something right, that he can still call himself a _hunter_.

Sam's as pissed as he expected, tells him not to do it again, which is fine by Dean. He just needed to know, and he does now. It's also strangely reassuring to see the genuine worry in his brother's eyes.

It doesn't stop him from calling Sam a princess, and Dean decides he really likes that, vows to use it more often. Sam would kill him in his sleep if _Dean-his-brother_ started calling him Princess, but _Karen-random-psychic-girl_ might just get away with it. It's not quite a silver lining, but Dean still smirks the whole walk back to the motel.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"That's it," says Sam, eyes skimming across the wrinkles and creases of the map in his hands. Dean throws him a glance but returns his eyes quickly to the road. He doesn't get to drive very often, still isn't comfortable demanding his fair turn since he's still along for the ride at Sam's sufferance, and hell if he's going to risk a dent in his baby's front fender just because Sam is talking nonsense.

"That's what?" he asks, no longer flinching at the high, rich timbre of his own voice. Or at the slender fingers gripping the steering wheel in front of him, for that matter.

"That's everything. Every town and city in two whole states, and then some."

Dean hears the resignation in his brother's tone, the edge of empty desperation with nowhere to go. The sun picks that moment to break free from a cloudbank straight ahead, and he squints right into it while he tries to figure out how to respond. It's a useless endeavor, Sam a hunched pile of agonized failure beside him, and Dean is grateful when he sees Starbucks on an exit sign thirty seconds later. Two miles.

"Need a break. And coffee," he says, pulling off on the ramp. He parks the car and makes Sam go in to order while he takes a moment to sort out his own thoughts. Sam's statement hit him out of nowhere, and now his hands are cold and shaking. The world is just slightly askew with how far and quickly he's sunken out of himself and into _Karen's_ headspace.

He just needs a moment to put the walls back up, and before Sam emerges Dean has hunted down a handful of local papers. An hour later, both freshly caffeinated, they're on their way to Minnesota. It looks like a big hunt, frozen corpses in the streets and no explanation the authorities can come up with.

"It's better than nothing, right?" he says, isn't surprised when all he gets is a pained look. "As long as we keep moving, we can keep our eyes open. Sitting still won't do any good."

"No," Sam agrees, a little numb and a little listless and Dean doesn't know what to _do_. "No, it won't."

The hunt is the successful distraction Dean hoped it would be, forcibly dragging Sam from moping around in his impotent frustration. People are dying, their own lives are in danger, and Dean knows from repeated experience it's hard to stay numb through the adrenaline rush that comes from barely avoiding your own end. Before they've even finished, he's got another gig lined up, because he'll goddamn distract Sam any way he can.

One hunt follows another, and Dean figures out how to really _work_ with his brother like this. Their investigations are solid, their balance easy enough that the dull ache, the one that comes from missing his brother even though he's _right there_ , fades to something quiet and almost irrelevant. They're a team now, and he can tell Sam assumes Karen will be there from one hunt to the next.

But 'team' isn't enough, and even wearing a woman's body Dean has no idea how to make a guy fall in love with him. Especially when that guy is _Sam_ , still haunted by his memories of Jessica, still searching all but hopelessly for Dean himself, and scared to let himself care because everyone he loves dies.

But Dean has credit cards now, and hustling is twice as easy and three times as lucrative with boobs. Which means he can go strategically about step one, getting Sam to really look at him. Look at him and _want_ , and Dean reminds himself that he's still enough of a man to know what men like, enough _Dean_ to know what will catch his brother's eye. He's got the money to walk into department stores and hair salons and beg for help girlifying Karen's tomboy appearance.

He figures out what shampoo to use, and learns a thing or two about all the other goopy shit women put in their hair to make it look all soft and natural and easy when it's _not_. He buys a hair dryer and learns how to apply makeup, figures out what shades accentuate his best features. He buys more clothes, and better underwear, and when he looks in the mirror he _knows_ he looks good.

Every purchase chafes for a while. The _last_ time he felt this emasculated was during his first period, which he supposes was worse. It doesn't change the fact that his morning ritual has gone from four minutes to forty. But eventually it all numbs down to routine, and he tucks it away with the other shit he can't afford to worry about yet.

Besides, he knows it's working. He catches Sam looking now and then. Occasionally at first, but with a growing consistency that he skillfully pretends he doesn't notice. He flirts, deliberate but subtle, with every guy who looks too long, and Sam's irritation feels like victory.

Months ago he was all but paralyzed with the realization that he needed to seduce Sam. Sam, the brother he carried from the fire and spent his whole life protecting. Sam who he would never, _never_ deceive this way, except he's got no choice and no way around it. _Sam_ who he'd give up everything for, and that apparently includes this.

The closer he gets, the more attention Sam pays, and the more okay it feels. Dean thinks that might be more screwed up than anything else about this mess, but it doesn't stop him from waking up one morning and realizing he _wants_ to kiss Sam.

He gets his chance after the pixies just south of Topeka. Sam kisses _him_ , actually, and even though it catches him by surprise he goes with it. They're both a little drunk, Dean maybe more than a little, because even after all this time he tends to overestimate his girlish figure's limited alcohol tolerance. The leaning for support goes both ways, though, and Dean is pretty sure he's called Sam 'Princess' three times in the last twenty minutes when he links their arms together. The world is warm and comfortable and _almost_ right, and Sam just turns and kisses him.

It's weird, feeling so small and surrounded as Sam wraps arms around him and draws him close. Dean kisses right back, through the warm buzz in his brain, and lets it go on longer than he probably should. He finally pulls away with a laugh when Sam's hands start to roam, and drags him stumbling down the sidewalk back to the hotel. Puts him to bed, and Sam cooperates like a very drunk, very proper gentleman.

Even as he's tucking his brother in, Dean is surprised to realize not just that he wants _more_ , but how badly he wants it. He's painfully aware that tonight is all wrong for taking things farther, that Sam will feel guilty and drive himself even farther out of reach if Dean lets anything more happen. He gets ready for bed with a nervous buzz echoing along his nerves, and his dreams are scorched fragments of things he's still not comfortable wanting.

In the morning they're both a little bit hung over and a little bit cranky, but they pack up their stuff and hit the road anyway. When Sam tries to apologize for his previous night's behavior, Dean won't let him.

"I didn't mind dude," he says, smiling from behind his way-too-girly sunglasses and stubbornly ignoring the aching tremor making him want to reach out and touch. "Really. It just… would've been a bad idea."

"Yeah," Sam agrees, and Dean thinks maybe he picked the wrong thing to say. "Yeah it would."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

And attracted is one thing, but 'in love' is another entirely, and Dean doesn't have the slightest idea how to clear _that_ hurdle. It turns out there's not much more he can do, and not really much he needs to. Despite the spreading tension between them, Dean slides further into the comfort of an easy rapport that tries less and less to mask the things he no longer worries will tip Sam off. With each "dude" that rolls off Karen's tongue, Dean sees Sam settle more comfortably in to whatever this is becoming, letting him closer inch by inch.

He learns his brother is a surprisingly tactile person, offering frequent hugs, herding nudges and often a hand at the small of his back. It doesn't occur to him until later and some outside commentary that some of those touches might hint that he's making more progress than he realizes.

"Do you love him?" Jo asks him once. They're at the Roadhouse to patch Sam up after a hunt that Dean is _still_ surprised didn't kill them both.

He doesn't answer the question, doesn't even meet her eyes after she asks it. He might have a uterus right now, but he's still Dean Winchester, and there is no goddamn way he's admitting any such thing out loud.

"It's okay, you know." Jo's voice is deliberate and gentle and triggers all the irritated responses Dean is long used to sitting on until a conversation is through. "It's not like I'm going to _say_ anything to him."

"Sorry," Dean says, because he figures it's only fair. All Jo knows of Karen is what little Dean has made up for her so far, and she's got no reason to know he doesn't talk about this shit. "It just feels weird actually admitting it. And he shouldn't have to deal with it right now. He's gone through enough shit lately."

"You think knowing you love him would be a _burden_?" Jo asks, incredulous and wide-eyed. It's the middle of the morning, Harvelle's closed and there are no patrons around to hear the sharp rise of her voice.

"God, could you _not_ announce it to the whole state? Please?"

"Sorry." Jo lowers her voice and leans conspiratorially forward. "You know that's crazy, right?"

"Sam already has the whole damn world on his shoulders," Dean points out, perfectly reasonable. "How is my giving him more shit to deal with _not_ a burden?"

"Because he loves _you_ , stupid," Jo chides, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. And okay, Dean had started to hope, suspect, _wonder_ , but hearing it said aloud like that sends sudden shivers down his spine.

"He tell you that?"

"Of course not." She doesn't roll her eyes again, but Dean can tell the gesture is barely restrained.

Sam walks in before he can get anything more useful out of her, and even if he pretends not to notice them and walks right out the door, the conversation is dead. Dean just drops his face in his hands and shakes his head. When Jo pats his arm sympathetically, he gives her a pained look, straightens his bra, and pretends he remembers how to breathe.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean still slips up and calls his brother 'Sammy' sometimes, and it takes him a solid week to realize once Sam stops correcting him. It should feel like a victory, like the knowledge that he's well on his way to winning the bet and getting out of this mess. Instead it feels like he's lost everything, and he has to excuse himself for a long walk to make his head stop spinning.

He's made a hell of a lot of progress, even if Sam still won't let him close. He can see the want in his brother's eyes, feel it matched somewhere low in his own thoughts, and every day brings the impossible a little bit closer.

But it's all the _little_ crap that isn't quite right. Karen has wormed her way, sure and stubborn, into Sam's heart. She gets to call him 'Princess', and hug him good night, and ride in his car from town to town looking for people to save. But Dean wants to call his brother a bitch and have it mean what it's supposed to, and every day gone by puts that wish another hundred miles away. It should feel like he's getting closer, and instead it's all slipping right through his fingers. After this nothing will be the same.

Because Sam tells Karen things he would never admit to Dean, not out loud when all their communication is so manly and nonverbal. And he talks about things Dean wants to smack him for admitting to someone that's not family. He talks about missing his brother, about a lot of the shit they're mixed up in and needing to stay just far enough ahead of the law. About the demon, and their dad, and wanting a life where he's not afraid every minute of every day for the people he loves.

 

It's broad daylight, a parking lot in Southern Wyoming and not a bar for miles, when Sam kisses him again. It's different the second time, both of them sober and a hundred times more coordinated as Sam draws him close, and Dean pops up on his toes to reach and wrap his arms around his brother's neck. Sam's hands are warm on his face, but only for a moment before they skate their way down his body to wrap around his slender waist and hold tight.

The kiss slides quickly desperate at Dean's coaxing, opening his mouth and sucking on Sam's tongue and rocking deliberately, tauntingly against the wall of muscle that is Sam's body. The room is all of ten feet away, but Dean can't spare the synapses to try and get them there. Not with _Sam_ all around him, hungry and real and promising things Dean is done feeling guilty for wanting.

A pointed cough breaks them suddenly apart, both of them turning to see the motherly scowl from the woman staying two rooms over. She draws her hand away from her little boy's eyes and drags him by the arm in the opposite direction.

When Dean stops watching her and turns back to Sam, his brother is already climbing into the car. The moment is obviously over, the heat draining away at Sam's mammoth reluctance, and Dean curses inwardly as he climbs into the passenger seat. It's just a coffee run, the caffeine in their systems all the better for interviewing witnesses this afternoon. Dean hates the world more than a little, because now they have to _talk_ about this. Sam won't want to, which puts the ball firmly in Dean's court.

"Look," he says when they get back, letting the door swing heavily shut behind him. "About before--"

"I'm sorry," Sam cuts him off.

"For _what_?" Dean demands, not quite believing and not quite sure what Sam is driving at, and he stares hard. "For kissing me? Dude, I obviously didn't mind, or did you miss the part where my tongue was down your throat."

"Not for that." Sam fidgets but holds his ground, even as he refuses to raise his eyes from the weathered carpet. "For… for leading you on like this."

" _Excuse_ me?" says Dean, his mouth going dry.

"Karen, you're terrific. And you're beautiful. And I should, but I can't… I just don't see you that way."

Dean can't believe the words coming out of his brother's mouth, can't believe Sam thinks for a _second_ that he'll take them for truth. Sam kissed _him_ , and his eyes are still on fire with want and terror and, yeah, _love_ , and Dean knows his brother well enough to know exactly what this is.

"I see what you're doing," he hisses. He steps forward and pokes Sam hard in the chest. "You don't get to make this call for me. You don't get to just _decide_ I'm not taking this risk. I goddamn _know_ you feel it, too."

He thinks maybe he's gotten through, maybe Sam is really hearing him, because his brother's face has dropped the unconvincing veneer of disinterest.

But Sam just says, "I can't," and refuses to meet Dean's eyes.

And god _damn_ , but Dean is getting sick of treading water. He briefly ponders sticking around and trying to finish this conversation, work Sam down until he realizes he's being completely senseless.

But he's already pissed off, and he doesn't trust the rational arguments to be the ones that come out of his mouth. If he stays he's liable to punch Sam right in the face. So he storms off instead, deliberately slamming the door behind his angry retreat.

He stays gone all afternoon and straight into the night, finding his way to a sprawling public park and kicking down flowers along the footpath until he finds a picnic table where he can sit and stew. His phone rings around dinnertime, but he ignores it in favor of finding a sandwich. Sam will call again if it's important or case related, will leave a message if he needs something. No second call comes through, no beep acknowledging a voicemail, so he knows it's nothing but Sam hoping to talk him back to their room.

 _That's_ not going to happen, and Dean just lets his frustration drag him, pensive and wandering, down a random sequence of streets. He's too good at this game to actually get lost, much as he might try, but three in the morning finds him miles across town and more confused than angry.

The sky was a threatening shade of green even before twilight fled into darkness, and he's only a little bit surprised when the clouds open up into a downpour right on his head. He's drenched in seconds. No point hurrying when the damage is already done, so he trudges his way back through the amassing puddles, along slick curbs and sidewalks.

By the time he sees the hotel the rain has stopped. The sky is still dark with storm, but it's five o'clock and the sun must be up behind the clouds.

When Dean opens the door and steps through it he finds Sam sitting on one of the beds, back propped against the headboard and knees drawn up tight. His brother's head snaps up instantly, the relief in his eyes almost ridiculous. Dean feels a stab of guilt, small but insistent, because of _course_ Sam worried that Karen had taken off for good or gotten hurt. He watches Sam unfold from his tormented huddle, legs dropping flat along rumpled sheets, and he suddenly realizes that he's small and soggy under his brother's scrutiny. Rivers of water are soaking into the floor at his feet, and he kicks off his sodden shoes.

"Hey," he finally says, all he can think of to break the stubborn silence.

"Hey," says Sam. His voice is quiet, warm, _relieved_ , and Dean feels like an utter jack-ass.

He hesitates for a moment. For no more than a second, because he's been churning his way through his uncertainties for hours now, for months before this, and maybe he needs a breath to gear up for what comes next, but there's not much doubt left to hold him up.

In the same heartbeat Dean crosses the room and climbs on the bed. He straddles Sam, feels the warmth of Sam's thighs between his knees. The wet mess he's making of both bed and occupant is _nothing_ in the face of the 'oh god, this is it' chorus swirling around his head.

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers when he leans close.

"Shut up," says Dean, and kisses him.

He can't help thinking this should feel different. It should feel sick, and dirty, and every level of wrong his brain can find.

Dean doesn't feel any of that. Even the guilt has been shoved aside for later. Right now Sam's hands are on him, Sam's mouth a hot, slick press against his own, and Dean feels the heavy tingle of want twisting down his spine and pooling between his legs. He's been a girl for months, but it hasn't stopped feeling strange, the sensation of being turned on in this body, feeling the burn of want settle in his belly without having a dick to get hard.

He's never quite gotten the hang of masturbating, either. The angle is all wrong, and it's been a rough handful of months. Hard to go find a bar and a willing woman for some hot and heavy lesbian action when you're supposed to be giving off constant hetero signals to your brother.

But Sam's hands are certain on his skin, confident and familiar, and Dean groans relief into the kiss, welcomes Sam's tongue when it prods gently and takes Sam's lower lip teasingly between his teeth.

Dean doesn't have the slightest clue if his brother is pushy in bed, but he suspects it's probably on him this first time. Sam will be waiting for Karen to call the shots and take the next steps. His brother the gentleman, all careful concern for others, all the time.

So it catches Dean completely by surprise when those knowing hands find the hem of his shirt and pull. He snaps to it in a heartbeat, raising his arms above his head so Sam can drag the drenched material up and off. A rolling scuffle of awkward limbs, and the rest of their clothes scatter in every direction leaving them satisfactorily naked. Dean shakes long, damp hair from his eyes and smiles, which Sam apparently takes as his cue to flip them and hover, warm and heavy and perfect above him.

Sam's hands and mouth are everywhere, eager and exploring, and Dean feels helpless under the onslaught. It's all different in this body, just enough to set every neuron on edge and leave him arching and whining into each touch. He wants to return the favor, actually _wants_ to, and he can't manage to assemble enough brain cells for anything but clinging uselessly and riding out the sensations.

When Sam slips lower, tongue taking a moment for a teasing circle around Dean's naval before slipping between his legs, Dean thinks he might just die. Sam is goddamn _good_ at this, teasing his way up Dean's inner thigh with quick biting kisses before settling in and getting down to business.

Dean writhes and arches, contorting the bed sheets around him, whole body taut and thrumming with need that just keeps mounting. It threatens to tear him apart, and he bites his lower lip and still can't contain the heavy moan Sam drags from his throat.

Sam stops abruptly, eliciting a whimper that makes Dean a little ashamed until Sam kisses his way back up his body. Another quick swirl of tongue around his naval, a moment spent on each breast, and Dean sucks in a gasp of air when Sam pulls a nipple gently between his teeth.

The lips disappear, and a quick glance down confirms that Sam is hard and ready. His eyes are on Dean's face, questioning and pleading and Dean doesn't need words to know Sam is asking if this is really okay. He knows what comes next, has been ready for this since their first drunken kiss and _prepared_ for it even longer. He doesn't even have to extricate himself and get out of bed. Just reaches over the edge to his small, ever-present duffel and roots around until he finds what he's looking for.

The look on Sam's face is nearly indecipherable when Dean tears off a single condom from the row and brandishes it aloft. Dean can read the uncertainty there, the reluctant suspicion, the hint at disappointment. He knows in a split second his brother will brush it off and bury it, like he does everything else that bothers him, swallow it to torment his own soul and not bother his loved ones about it.

When Sam reaches for the packet, Dean keeps a stubborn hold on it. When Sam quirks an eyebrow at him, he quirks his own right back.

"Only for you, Sam," he says, doesn't even notice the high, melodic brush of his own voice. "You get that, right?"

The grin that breaks across his brother's face at the words is _joy_ , and Dean almost chokes on the relief, the gratitude of the moment. He actually feels tears well up in the corners of his eyes, blinks them stubbornly away and offers his own small smile as he loosens his hold and lets Sam take the condom.

When Sam slides into him, there's a moment of discomfort. A tight, pinching sensation that has him gasping and screwing his face up in surprise, and Dean takes a moment to be startled that his body is a _virgin_ before catching a glimpse of his brother's face. Eyes frozen wide in shock, and Sam is completely still against and inside of him.

Then Sam kisses him again, hungry and deep and _grateful_ , and Dean barely registers the taste that has to be _him_ on his brother's tongue. A stray thought flits its way through his brain, that all the times he called Sam a girl are really not so funny anymore, and never will be again. But Sam moves then. Slow, careful thrusts of his hips matched by the delving explorations of his tongue, and Dean doesn't try to think anymore.

It's strange, being on the receiving end of something so familiar, the press and slide between his thighs as he tries to figure out an angle to reciprocate. He tries to mimic the movements he remembers from the women he's been with, the distinctive roll of hips that he knows takes everything deeper and better.

But his body refuses to do anything except arch against Sam, all but beyond his control. The appreciative groans against his throat tell him that's probably okay. The back and forth slide of Sam inside him feels tight and wet, good but mostly strange, and he shifts his focus to Sam's neck. Bites and kisses and sucks along his brother's beautiful throat, up and under his jaw when Sam throws his head back.

Dean whimpers and bites down too hard when Sam suddenly slips a hand between them, down to where their bodies rock together, and his flesh feels like _fire_ when Sam's fingers move against him in staccato counterpoint to their existing rhythm. Each thrust is deeper than the last, their ragged breathes mingling together in the air around them, and Dean locks his ankles against Sam's back and moans his name when he comes.

Sam eases him down slowly before locking both hands on the swell of Dean's hips, his own movements speeding shallow and disjoint. They match his groaning breaths until he buries himself against Dean's shoulder with gasps and curses and Karen's name on his lips. Dean feels the pulse of Sam's orgasm, draws him back to kiss him again.

The following five minutes should be awkward, Dean thinks. Disposing of the used condom and toweling off so they can collapse into the other bed, dry and clean.

But there's no room for awkward in the sated exhaustion sinking into his bones, and when he collapses on to dry sheets Sam is right there with him, pulling the thin fabric of worn blankets up and over them. Neither of them slept last night, and he feels Sam snuggle against him, sleepy and content. His body feels all wrong against his brother's, curves and squishy bits in all the wrong places as Sam pulls him close. He doesn't let himself dwell on it, forcibly blocks off thoughts of how wrong this should feel even without the curves.

He wonders sleepily, in the moment before unconsciousness fades around his edges, if that did it. If maybe he ought to be getting the hell out of here, lest the impending transformation leave him male and naked in his brother's arms. But his limbs are tired, and his body is satisfied, and he's too spent to convince himself to move.

 

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, he wakes up and pretends not to, still a woman and still wrapped close around the sleeping figure beside him. He keeps his mind a careful blank and focuses on the rise and fall of Sam breathing beside him. He can feel the instant Sam wakes, and swallows with relief when his brother's first response is to press close and laugh softly.

Dean knows he probably looks ridiculous, twisted up in the giant t-shirt he found when he'd groped one-handed along the floor a couple hours ago. He feels a little silly for it, but naked left him feeling too open, too exposed to whatever the hell this is, and the armor of Sam's shirt helped chase the uncertainty away just a little longer.

He blinks his eyes, deliberately slow and groggy, and catches Sam's easy smirk in the dropping light of late afternoon. He closes them again at the press of lips to his forehead, and watches with a sleepy gaze as Sam extricates himself from their bed and heads for the bathroom. He rolls right back over and closes his eyes before the door clicks shut.

He waits for it to hit him, the magnitude of his actions, and instead surprises himself with how easy it is to swallow back the queasiness at all the lines he just crossed. There's a strange sort of serenity in what happened, in the inevitability of it and the look of joy he saw on Sam's face. No level of _wrong_ can undo what he saw, and he can't bring himself to feel disgust, not even at the ugly word that's been floating around his brain since a man who was a coyote told him he had to seduce his brother.

Harder to ignore is the guilt of lying to Sam. The guilt of realizing that, no matter _how_ this ends, it's going to tear his brother apart. He's seduced Sam under false pretenses, and his own unexpected comfort with this particular taboo can't combat the revelation. The knowledge sits in his gut and gnaws at his insides, and he feels the bile reach his throat.

But the fact remains that there aren't many options open to him. And of the options he has, only one results in Sam not being dead. So Dean swallows the guilt right along with everything else, and he prays that when this is over he can salvage the only family he's got left.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They don't bother with separate beds after that. It doesn't make any sense, and Dean just gives Sam a _look_ and says, "Seriously, why?"

Sam starts introducing Karen with an easy "This is my girl," when they're not playing parts. Which isn't all that often, but it happens enough. The first time Karen 'meets' Bobby, Dean is sure the man will look at him and _know_. But Bobby just shakes his hand warmly, throwing Sam a wry smile that crinkles around the edges.

Dean tries to wrap both his brain and his mouth around the word 'boyfriend,' and it's a damn near impossible task. Which isn't to say he has a lot of introducing to do. Everybody knows Sam and nobody knows Karen, because she doesn't goddamn _exist_. But sometimes he's got to say _something_ , and he eventually just settles for, "This is my Sam," leaning in close so his meaning is unmistakable. Sam always drops an arm around his waist and gives him a humoring smirk, and Dean always feels like an absolute jack-ass for not being able to push it that extra step. He's _sleeping_ with Sam. Terms of endearment shouldn't be beyond him.

And one day Sam knocks him flat on his ass, coming out of nowhere with, "I love you." They're a little busy, dumping armloads of newly purchased ammo in the trunk, and he nearly drops a case of bullets on his foot in his surprise.

Dean can't say it back. His throat closes tight around the words and holds them silent, not a lie but the wrong truth, and he _can't_. Which doesn't stop him grinning once his toes are out of danger from falling ammo, and he can feel it spreading big and stupid across his face.

When he sees the smile mirrored straight back at him, he thinks maybe it's okay. Sam doesn't seem to mind, starts to say it all the goddamn time after that, and Dean realizes he's okay with that, too. He can't say it, but he'll take it anyway, and for the moment everything is fine. Still screwed up, still swimming in the same chaos that's been surrounding him for months, but he can breathe and smile and _mean_ it, and for the moment that's enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It doesn't occur to him to count, and it takes Dean two months to realize something is missing.

It's a slow, irritating buildup to revelation. His hands start tingling at random intervals. He's tired all the time, which he supposes isn't unwarranted given this relatively untested body and the strange hours they keep. Then one morning he nearly throws the coffee Sam brings him across the room.

It's not that the gesture isn't sweet. But he wakes up to Sam holding the cup practically under his nose, the smell warm and familiar and _caffeine_. It should be inviting, but instead it's all Dean can do to shove the offering hand away and keep last night's dinner down.

"You okay?" Sam asks, wiping a splash of coffee off on his jeans and staring at Dean with wide, worried eyes.

"Yeah," he mutters. He scrubs at his face and wills his heaving insides to settle. "Yeah, peachy. Just… not in the mood for coffee, I guess."

It isn't his first theory. Not even a week later when the most random smells are still setting him off at all hours of the day. He hides his discomfort from Sam, proud of pulling it off and not wanting to give his brother more shit to worry about. And after all, it's not just the mornings and how the hell is _he_ supposed to know this shit.

When he realizes it's been two months since he bled on schedule and the possibility hits him, he spends a solid week denying reality to the best of his impressive abilities.

"You sure you're okay, babe?" Sam asks him one night. "You seem nervous."

"Dude, for the last time, I'm not afraid of the giant spiders."

"It's just… we've been on this case a week, and you haven't stopped twitching _yet_."

Dean rolls his eyes and gets ready to lob some retort just shy of scathing at his brother. But he pulls up short when he actually stops and thinks Sam's words through. It's been a week. Of constant fidgeting, and deliberately ignoring, and playing as dumb as he can. A _week_ of this, and it's not going away.

So instead of letting loose with the irritation on the tip of his tongue, he slumps back against the headboard and says, "Yeah, okay. Maybe I'm a little scared of the giant spiders."

Sam's expression softens to complete mush, a look Dean _thought_ he'd trained him _out_ of, and Dean resists the urge to throw something at his brother's head.

"Why don't you stay here while I clear out the nest?" Sam offers gently, sliding over to the bed and setting a familiar hand on Dean's knee, bare beneath a blue skirt he plans to burn as soon as he's got his balls back. He drags his eyes away from the resented fabric when he realizes Sam is still talking. "--should only take a couple hours, and I can call if I need backup."

"Fine." Dean purses his lips and tries like hell to look appreciative. "If you're sure, I mean."

Sam just smiles and kisses him and goes back to packing up the necessary gear. Dean helps, ignores the now familiar tingling sensation in his hands, and gives Sam a kiss for luck on his way out the door.

He watches the car disappear down the street, then waits another ten minutes before dragging his suddenly shaking legs along the sidewalk to the drugstore on the corner.

It takes him not quite forever to find what he's looking for, and even then all the stupid little boxes look exactly the same. He finally growls and grabs one at random, then fidgets, red and uncomfortable at the checkout. Maybe he only imagines the cashier's squinty-eyed, judging look, but he still can't get out of the store and back behind the door to their room fast enough for his suddenly racing heart.

By the time Sam gets back from sacking the nest, Dean has peed on every goddamn stick, and every single one of them has turned blue. He's got just enough wherewithal to throw them away in the dumpster across the street before he collapses on the bed to a stabbing mantra of ' _oh god, oh shit, oh fucking hell_ ' inside his head. He only gets twenty minutes of that before Sam's return, but his brother is coated in nasty, dripping _things_ and moves straight for the shower.

"Sam, I'm gonna get some air. You good for now?" he yells through the closed door of the bathroom.

"Yeah," Sam yells back, followed immediately by the running shower.

Dean nearly forgets shoes in his rush out the door, and once both sandals are on the appropriate feet he picks a direction and _goes_. No destination in mind, nothing but the need to be somewhere that isn't _here_ , to bury himself in a hole and wait for the throbbing, pulsing panic to subside.

When he finally stops moving, his head is a little clearer. He's standing outside an old apartment building, similar structures and weedy yards interspersed along the street in both directions. A giant tree stands next to this building, set far enough back that Dean can barely see it in the shadows and realizes the sun has all but set. The tire swing hanging from one branch looks sketchy as hell, and Dean half-stumbles over to sit on the dry grass beside it, back pressed hard against the bark.

His pulse gradually slows from terrified torrent, and he unpacks the unwanted revelations as carefully as he can. He quirks an eyebrow at but otherwise ignores the 'this can't be happening' that hits him first. It can, and it is, and seven pregnancy tests can't _all_ be wrong. They've never _not_ used protection, but Dean is a realist. Horrible shock of the moment aside, he's still not as surprised as he probably should be.

The next thought to break free from the mass is by far the worst. He doesn't know if he's related to Sam in this body, and the question nearly makes the world spin him sick when it lands. He fights it down and forces his breathing even, because there's nothing he can do until he knows for sure.

 _Everything_ pauses then, at the one, narrow question he can focus on. Not a damn thing he can do, or decide, or even _think_ until he knows what he's dealing with, and he draws himself up from the dirt with a hand on the tree behind him. He stares at his hand against the bark for long minutes, not a strange sight anymore, but right now it stabs him somewhere deep and angry with how _wrong_ everything is.

He edges one foot forward at a time, spends the long walk back to the hotel forcibly reconstructing the façade he hasn't needed this badly since his first months as Karen.

"Sorry," he mumbles, the apology genuine as he steps over the threshold and catches the worried look from Sam. "I guess the spider guts freaked me out more than I expected. Didn't know I was some kind of macro-arachnaphobe." It shouldn't take. It's not clever, his delivery is off. His face is burning, and how the hell does Sam not just look at him and _know_?

But Sam smiles easily, all muffled amusement and quiet understanding, and wraps him up in those enormous sasquatch arms. Dean wonders how he can feel so safe and so desperate to flee all at once, but he snuggles right back against his brother's chest and focuses on smooth breathing, no shaking as he draws Sam down to kiss him.

He shouldn't want sex, not now, not like _this_. But everything has shattered straight to chaos, and he suddenly needs the tangible reality of hands holding him close, lips whispering useless reassurances in his ear, Sammy slick and warm inside him and the illusion that everything can be okay again.

It's all about to go to hell around him, and he needs this for just a moment longer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It takes weeks, research and a lot of stealth to set up what he needs next. It turns out this whole genetics test thing isn't as complicated as he thought. There's an entire industry out there, and he's got credit cards with a couple names Sam doesn't know about, so the exorbitant price tag isn't that big a deal.

Trickier still is keeping Sam in the dark while staying put long enough to make and keep an appointment. Always on the move as they are, he can't use any of the services that mail the results back after a week or six. He finally ends up faking the flue on their way to a fresh gig, telling Sam to go on without him.

"But be _careful_. Don't go getting killed just because I'm not there to watch your ass."

"You sure you'll be okay? Maybe I should stay."

"Sam." Dean tries to look pitiful and forceful all at once, and it's a challenge. "People are dying. Go fix it. I'll sleep the whole time you're gone and be better when you get back. Okay?"

Sam still seems reluctant, and Dean stops resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He gives an over-the-top groan as he sits up from his cocoon of sheets and comforter, and levels an exasperated glower across the room.

"Go. Right now, I mean it. And come back in one piece, or I'll kill you."

"I… okay. But you'll call if you need me?"

"Yes. Now go away so I can sleep!" He lobs the extra pillow into the air and flops back against the other with a smirk when it hits its target. Sam tosses it back in a gentle arc meant to return the pillow rather than retaliate, and Dean closes his eyes to listen for the sounds of his brother's departure. He's got a chunk of Sam's hair tucked in a ziplock at the bottom of his duffel, clipped from his head in the middle of night to the soundtrack of his own hammering heart.

The case is a tricky one, Dean made sure of it when he was investigating leads last week. Which means he should have at least three days with Sam working alone, maybe as long as a week.

The results come back a day before Sam does, and he's not sure whether to be relieved or terrified when the little man behind the desk gives him a sympathetic look and says, "I'm sorry, miss, but I'm afraid the DNA was not a match."

Maybe the story about finding his long lost sibling was a little overkill, he thinks in retrospect, but he shakes the man's hand and takes a taxi back to his room. He waits all the while for panic-phase-two to settle in, surprised when it doesn't. Just a numb sort of helplessness that leaves him floundering for direction and uselessly asking himself, 'Now what?'

The next town they land in carries rumors of a vanishing windmill. Dean tells Sam he's going for a walk and gets his ass to an honest to god clinic, and he still can't believe this. He's still spinning directionless, but with all the realizations he's come to in the past weeks, he doesn't have the slightest clue how to go about not screwing this up any worse. He needs a doctor to tell him everything is all right, because he doesn't _know_ , and he's got no idea what to do now.

"So no beer and no coffee, huh?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow at the kind-eyed, pudgy woman in the white lab coat. She's holding a clipboard in her hands, her mouth still shaped around the last syllable of a confirmation Dean didn't need.

"No alcohol," she agrees. "Coffee is fine, though." Which isn't actually a consolation, because lately the smell of coffee just makes him want to hurl, but the woman is still talking and he tries to pay attention. "No caffeine once the baby is born, though, not if you plan to breastfeed."

Dean promptly erases the words from his brain, because _god_ , there is no such reality. He forces himself to listen intently and absorb everything as she continues, outlining the common symptoms he might have to deal with and some less common ones, like the goddamn tingling hands. When he says he's just passing through town, she gives him strict follow-up instructions that he knows he'll try and mostly fail at obeying and a list of foods and diet plans that he'll memorize as best he can before throwing them away in the waiting room.

He doesn't say anything to Sam. He doesn't even know where to start, and instead goes about making extra sure Sam doesn't notice any of the little shit that tipped Dean himself off. He learns to poker-face his way through the nausea, and the fatigue proves less of a hurdle, because Sam is tired _all_ the time lately, driving himself to exhaustion in his brother's perceived absence. Dean fakes the status quo, and two months go by with half a dozen hunts and no further incident.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Being constantly tired would be irritation enough in itself, but it's worse when he can never get to sleep for all the thoughts storming around in his head. As it is, Dean is amazed his eyes stay open all day, usually thanks to adrenaline since he still can't bring himself to touch coffee. A doctor in Medford assures him the nausea will likely lessen by the second trimester, and Dean forces his pretty face into a smile and pays for the check-up with the last of his cash.

Night after ugly night leaves him staring at crumbling hotel ceilings, warring with the voices in his head to just let him _rest_. One night in particular finds him echoing sleepless. He's faking it, he thinks convincingly, until Sam rolls over and spoons right up behind him. Sam's huge hand slides over Dean's hip to spread long fingers across his belly and pull him close, the gesture all subconscious snuggling as his brother leans in to whisper concern straight into his ear.

"Are you all right?"

Dean almost chokes at the touch, feels the extra weight of all the things he should be saying right now. Instead he puts his hand over Sam's, holds it there against his stomach and feels like a failure and a coward.

"Yeah," he says, voice high and tight. "Just a bad dream."

"Vision bad?" Sam asks, suddenly alert with concern, and Dean gives himself a mental kick in the head.

"No. Just a nightmare. Go back to sleep, Sam."

Sam doesn't, and neither does Dean. They both know it, both know the other knows. Sam stays wrapped warm and close, Dean tries to tell himself he doesn't need the touch like goddamn oxygen, and the hours before dawn creep uselessly by.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Thing about Jo, Dean's surprised to learn, is she _really_ wants to hunt. Misses her daddy, doesn't know any other way to be close to his memory and itches to be on the road going after the kind of shit that took him away. He suspects she's got another motive, one he feels guilty for on a close, personal level. She hasn't said it out loud, not even to Karen, but Dean's always been good at reading women. She thinks they must have missed something in their search, thinks if she were out there maybe she could do better.

Add to that a life of busing tables, listening to shadowed stories and collecting knives, and he's not surprised she chafes at staying put. Her mama doesn't want her setting foot in that big, dangerous world, and every day what little maternal rein Ellen has grows more tenuous. Because Jo just wants to _move_.

Which is exactly what she's ranting about now, her hands slicing wildly at the air and her mother well out of earshot. Dean isn't even sure why they're here, something Sam needed to pester Ash about. And normally he'd find a riled Jo entertaining enough to warrant the stop, but the last couple months have been spent with something a little more insistent churning through his head.

He tries to pay attention. To grunt in indignation at all the right moments and not let his eyes drop uselessly to the floor. He even thinks he's doing a decent job of it until he realizes a dry silence has settled between them and he doesn't know when it happened. He glances up from his heavy, beaten boots, not sure when he let his gaze slip that way in the first place, and meets Jo's quirked eyebrow with a blank look.

"Are you okay?" Jo asks, shifting her position to straddle a chair backwards and glancing around the empty bar.

"I'm spectacular," Dean breezes, façade quick and easy above the tumultuous pulp of his insides, and he's actually surprised when she levels a look of obvious disbelief at him. He stomps heavily on a bubble of panic, because she doesn't get to see that shit, and god _damn_ but she needs to not push this.

"You're _lying_ ," she says. Curses echo through Dean's skull. If Jo pushes he's going to either storm out the door or crumble into a fetal ball of justified angst and off-kilter hormones, and he's getting sick of being on his guard all the time.

"Forget it," he tries to reassure. "It's nothing. Just… tired from the road."

Jo gives him another one of those looks, all skeptical concern, and Dean loses all hope of getting her to drop this crusade.

"Karen, come on." She sets a concerned hand warm on his wrist and leans forward. "I know we haven't been friends long, but you're not _yourself_." Which makes Dean snort, but Jo doesn't seem to notice. "What is _up_ with you lately?"

"I appreciate your concern." Dean fights to keep his tone even, stepping on both irritation and the urge to shatter. "But I can't talk about this right now. I've just gotta work it out for myself."

"Karen, you've got to know you can trust me." Jo's eyes are pleading, and Dean feels something inside him fracture. "Whatever it is, I can try to help. I know how to keep my mouth shut."

And the thought suddenly rears up and smacks Dean right between the eyes: why not? The worst she can do is tell Sam, and she won't, and Sam will find out soon enough no matter what. He won't be able to hide it indefinitely.

It's still a bad idea for Jo or anyone else to know. Yet, or at all, or before _Sam_. But those concerns are nothing in the face of the sudden, desperate itch to get it out. He has to tell _someone_ , or it's going to rip his insides to shreds before he figures out what to do.

His heart, already racing its way into overdrive, starts pounding louder in his ears as he glances around to make sure they're still alone. Sam always gives him plenty of space at the Roadhouse, but that doesn't dull the edge of paranoia or stop him glancing at all the doors.

"You've got to promise me," he finally says, locking Jo with his eyes, dropping his voice and leaning close. "You've got to goddamn _swear_ you won't breathe a word of this to _anyone_."

Jo is the seated embodiment of rapt attention, mouth pursed and eyebrows drawn tight center on her face.

"Of course. I promise."

Dean chews on his lip for a long moment, fidgets in his seat and tucks his hair aside, finally has to look away to get the words out.

"I'm pregnant."

It takes him a long stretch of minutes to work up the nerve, but when he lifts his head to meet Jo's eyes there's no judgment there. Startled shock, oh yes, and plenty of it. But no judgment, and Dean feels the weight of burden slipping just enough to let him breathe.

"Sam," she says, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Duh."

"It wasn't really a question, smart-ass." Jo punches him lightly in the arm, but the accompanying voice is all sympathetic understanding. "So he doesn't know yet?"

Dean shakes his head, not so much trusting this voice, familiar as it's grown, not to give him away completely. Jo doesn't get to see that, because even pretending to be someone else entirely, there are layers Dean doesn't share.

"It's not so bad," she says, and Dean can't keep the incredulous disbelief from overtaking his face. "I'm serious. It could be worse. Hell, I thought maybe you were dying of cancer or something. Or killed someone."

Which doesn't quite snap everything into automatic perspective, because there are things Jo doesn't know that might well put this on the list with murder and dying of cancer.

But her tone is easy and relieved, and the calm is a little bit infectious. Dean leans back and soaks it up, and he's surprised to realize he trusts her to keep her promise. He can work out how to tell Sam, and maybe, _maybe_ they'll be able to figure this out.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As far as Dean can tell, there is no possible way for things to get more jacked than they are. Just thinking it is probably enough to jinx him, but the thought is persistent. Wearing a woman's body, uterus and all, unable to tell his baby brother who he is while he tags along searching for _himself_ , and the baby just takes things to a whole new level of not-okay. So yes, things are screwed up, and Dean thinks that just maybe he's justified for once in thinking they can't get any worse.

Of course, then Sam throws a "So I've been thinking" at him, and Dean can't pretend he doesn't hear the very-serious undercurrent beneath the words.

It's the middle of the afternoon, a better time for 'very serious' than Sam usually picks, so Dean counts his blessings and forces his demeanor calm. This could be anything. Could be hunt-related, could be confession time for yet another family secret Dean will have to pretend not to know, could be any number of things that have nothing to do with Sam noticing Karen hasn't bought pads in months. The air is just this side of muggy, thick and stifling now that Dean is nervous, and he sets his lapful of papers aside.

"Usually a bad idea," he says when he realizes Sam isn't planning to play ice-breaker on whatever is nagging him. "And?"

"And I don't want to hunt forever." Which is nearly the last thing Dean might've expected to hear, and of course it's something he already _knows_ , but he keeps his mouth shut as Sam forges forward. "For awhile longer, yeah. There's shit I can't walk away from, and I can't give up on Dean yet, but…"

Dean just stares, body taut and head confused as he watches Sam trail off and swallow between thoughts.

"Anyway, I want to stop hunting someday. And find somewhere safe to start a family, and…" Sam stops again, abrupt enough that Dean's spinning thoughts get whiplash, and it's long moments of twisting fingers around in his lap before Sam manages a short, quiet whisper.

"Karen, will you marry me?"

Dean had been reaching out a moment before, conflicted worries clashing in his brain, but he stops mid-gesture, his hand hovering in the air halfway to Sam's arm and his jaw slack with something beyond disbelief. Sam, steadfastly avoiding his eyes while getting his confession out, finally _looks_ at him. His face falls into a small, amused smile, easier than it has any right to be.

"You don't have to answer right now," Sam reassures. "I don't _want_ you to until you're sure. Just… think about it?" The casual grace with which Sam slips back into research mode is an act, but an excellent one, and Dean resents it more than a little. A guy doesn't get to drop something like that in the air and then pretend it's no big. There's no velvet box or diamond ring sitting on the bedspread between them, but there might as well be.

Dean squashes and swallows every reaction, forces tingling fingers to reclaim his half of the research. There's no such thing as a tangle that can't get tighter, and Dean will never venture such a thought again.

But god _damn_ does he wish the world would stop spinning and let him pretend, for just an instant, that his feet are on solid ground.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Dean starts excusing himself for hours at a time between hunts, Sam doesn't push him on it. He knows his brother thinks Karen's long walks, increasingly frequent as they are, are time to 'think things through' or some other such emo shit. Which, yeah, maybe sometimes they are. And sometimes they're appointments at some discreet little clinic, scheduled just after they pull into town. He feels like he needs to make sure everything is okay, because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

No amount of 'thinking things through' sheds any helpful illumination on the spreading mire. He's got no clue how he's supposed to tell Sam, and _no_ idea what to do with the marriage proposal.

He stews his way through weeks that turn into months, and it will be moot before long. One of these days it will look like more than just weight gain. He'll start 'showing', or so he's been told by every doctor in a seven state radius, and god but he already hates that word. Any day now it will be too obvious, and Sam will just look at him and _know_.

It occurs to him once, and only once, that he could end this and never tell his brother. Sam wouldn't need to know. The thought makes him ill. It makes the nausea of the last few months feel like _nothing_ , and he takes a shower so long the hot water runs out, trying to scrub the idea from his skin.

When a few days later he wakes up in the passenger seat to the familiar sight of the Roadhouse, Dean knows exactly what his little brother is up to. He straightens upright against the leather and tries not to give Sam an accusing glare.

"I know what you're doing. And you don't have to, I'm _fine_." Girl talk won't do him a grain of good, and he's too damn tired to deal with Jo right now. He sure as hell isn't going to fake it just because Sam is worried about him, however justifiable the concern.

"Look, I don't… I don't want you to think I'm being impatient," Sam says, missing the point by about twenty miles. He squints up at the blinding white of shifting clouds, and Dean is relieved not to have those eyes on _him_ when Sam continues. "But I'm worried about you, and I know you can't talk to me about what's bothering you or you would have by now, and this--"

"It's not what you think," Dean cuts in, suddenly terrified at the battered edge of desperation behind his brother's words.

"What?" Sam brings his eyes down from the sky, and they're dark and intense.

"It's not… Sam, I've been thinking about what you said. I have. But that's not what--"

"I want you to stay," Sam interrupts, and Dean's brain tears to a useless, confused halt.

"Huh?" is all he manages, because wherever Sam's head is at right now, Dean just isn't tracking.

"If you're going to say no, I don't want you to think you have to leave. I want you to stay."

And isn't _that_ the last goddamn thing Dean is expecting to hear, and suddenly he can barely breathe. Sam wants promises, wants to know Karen will be there, if not forever then a little longer yet. And in that second Dean wants nothing but to make every promise, even though he knows he can't. He's already lying about everything else. He can't lie about this, not when he doesn't _know_. Sam deserves better than that.

"Sam…" he starts, trailing off because he's not sure what words to put forward. This is it, really, the moment he should step up and tell Sam about the baby. This is as close to a right moment as he can hope for in this world gone wrong, and for an instant he thinks maybe he can be strong enough to do it.

"I love you," Sam says, robbing him of that second of opportunity. Dean inhales, harsh and hard and feels his pulse try to shatter free from his chest. He tries to smile at Sam, knows the result is small and fragile, and he doesn't miss Sam's hands tightening knuckle-white on the wheel.

"I love you, too," he whispers, not really thinking beyond this terrified space, needing Sam to _understand_ and knowing he won't be able to make it happen.

But the words break Sam from his impending panic at least, and Dean catches the hint of a smile despite the battered mess of a conversation still hanging heavily between them. He turns to lock his eyes out the windshield and lets his gaze sweep across the Roadhouse's dusty, wooden front.

"Let's just get out of here," he says, and Sam backs silently out of the lot and drives them away. Dean can tell Sam just picks a direction at random, but he makes no complaint. It's not like they have anywhere better to be.

He stares at the side of Sam's head for forty miles, pretending all the while he doesn't notice his brother deliberately ignoring the scrutiny. He's four months pregnant, rolling down the interstate with a brother who thinks he's Miss Perfect and wants to buy him an engagement ring, and Dean thinks this would be a _fine_ time for the world to implode.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They find their next hunt in a pile of local papers after driving straight through the night, and day one is all the boring stages of research. Dean searches for an opening at a clinic across town, and on day two he goes in for a checkup, a process that's fast becoming routine. He thinks it should freak him out more, but the list of freak-worthy things in his increasingly macabre life is getting slightly ridiculous, and knowing the proper procedure for visiting an obstetrician doesn't really rank.

He has extra cash on hand for this visit, and when the doctor expresses shock that he's never had an ultrasound Dean just shrugs and says, "Why not."

Which is how he winds up bare stomached, chilly with this weird, clear goop spread all over his skin and twitching as the doctor prods him with some instrument he's never seen before. The grainy screen he's looking at is probably supposed to be making him feel sappy and emotional, but aside from this being too damn surreal, he can't make out a thing. The doctor, a round little man with friendly eyes, is gesturing at the 'picture' and saying something about the hands. Dean doesn't try to tune him out on purpose, but the words dissolve into a dull drone for several minutes.

"Do you want to know the child's sex?"

"Huh?" Dean asks, snapped back from the hypnotically unidentifiable image.

"Boy or girl. Do you want to know?"

Dan stares for a long, awkward stretch of seconds before he says, "You can tell that shit already?" The doctor smiles indulgently and nods.

"Oh yes. It's not an exact science, mind you, but I can tell you with some certainty based on what I see here."

Dean swallows hard, stares numbly at the screen. He doesn't want to know. It's too real already, time and denial slipping away from him a day at a time. He _doesn't_ want to know, but he needs to. So he turns to the doctor and nods.

"Tell me."

He's halfway back to the motel when the answer finally sinks in. It's a baby girl, whole and healthy, and Dean knows right that second that her name is Mary. Everything is still screwed to hell, but he can't help the falter in his step or the hand he slides protectively over his stomach.

He can't sleep that night, can't focus or keep his eyes open the next day. Which leaves him less than surprised to wake up in the middle of the night, abandoned research strewn about on the bed. He _is_ surprised that the room is empty, but Sam's note is right there on his laptop and the impending panic dissipates.

He thinks about following the note's directions and lending a hand, but the sloppy script insists Sam has this one covered and, for once, Dean is inclined to believe him.

He takes himself out into the night air instead, and slumps on the step outside their room. From there he can stare out above the parking lot, eyes unfocusing on the starscape above, muted just slightly by a small town's light pollution.

For once he doesn't try to rein his thoughts in. He lets his mind wander like it's been trying to do since a coyote walked up to him by a crumbling gas station in Michigan, lets it meander through all the shit he's been fighting like hell not to think about. Like his brother and his baby. Like a marriage proposal he still hasn't figured out how to turn down. 'Karen' has been more than a year of his life now, has been Sam's girl for more of that time than not.

Dean realizes with sudden, jarring clarity that somewhere along the way he's resigned himself to this. To the thought of being a woman forever, because Sam already loves him and whatever the remaining catch is, he's never going to figure it out. Over a year, and he _should_ have solved the puzzle by now. Which leaves him stalled out and directionless, staring at a black horizon and wondering what happens now.

His mind drags him back to Sam's proposal, and for the first time he considers it. It's the baby that finally gets his brain to turn over. A baby that's suddenly a girl, and her name is _Mary_ , and there's not a goddamn thing Dean would do to keep her out of his world.

He wasn't lying when he said 'I love you,' difficult as the words were. It's Sam. Sam who's always been everything, and now he's even more. Dean suddenly thinks maybe he can do this. Maybe he can say goodbye to Dean Winchester forever. Be _Karen_ , marry Sam, have 2.5 kids and a white picket fence in the burbs.

The thought should make his stomach roil, but it doesn't. He might not be able to do right by Sam, but he'll give everything he has to do right by this little girl. He feels grounded for the first time in more than a year, sure and solid with a path laid out ahead of him. When Sam comes back he'll say 'yes' and let him buy a stupid, shiny rock to stake his claim.

He looks down, lays fingers against his stomach through the baggy folds of a faded rooster t-shirt.

"I don't think you're going to like it out here, babe," he says. "But I'll do my best."

The next instant settles ice cold in his gut. He pulls his hand away and feels something too close to terror in his pulse as a strangely familiar silhouette detaches from the shadows and glides its way toward him. It's huge and hunched, looked like the shadow of a rock before it shifted, and it moves for him with an unnatural grace that sets Dean's teeth on edge. Halfway across the parking lot it shifts and slides out of itself, finishing its journey on two legs and stopping at the bottom of the stoop.

"You," Dean accuses, frozen where he sits.

"Excellent," the man says, a toss of the head settling his hair glistening back over his shoulder. " _Excellent_ , and just as I was beginning to give up hope for you. I thought you'd _never_ get there. Oh, I _do_ so love to lose on occasion."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean asks, plays dumb, freezes immobile in a terrified instant.

"You know what I'm talking about, Dean Winchester. You've won your bet, found the last piece of the puzzle. It's time to set things right again." He raises a shimmering hand in the darkness, positioning his fingers just so, and the gesture propels Dean up and forward.

"No!" he shouts, grip closing tight over the threatening hand before those fingers can snap. A sleek, white eyebrow quirks at him, and he feels an electric tingle along his skin where it makes contact. "You can't, not yet."

"How deliciously naïve. You still think your wishes have any sway over this game. Cheer up, silver linings abound. Your lives will be far easier with my protection. You don't even _know_ the trouble you'll soon be in."

"Please," Dean whispers, doesn't even care that he's begging through the blind panic singing in his blood. He grunts in startled pain when the oddly tingling point of contact sharpens into a jagged shock that sends him stumbling back against the step.

"You might want to take those clothes off. They're going to be a little constricting in a moment. Tell you what, I'll give you a forty second head start."

The change back is as agonizing as the first transformation, and he barely gets out of his pants in time. The trickster demi-god doesn't stick around for the finale, and five minutes later Dean is lying on the mottled carpet, naked and shaking and not sure how he got back into the room. He can't think, can't breathe, can't open his eyes until the pain fades. A glance down at his hands confirms beyond any stubborn doubt. Not small enough or slender enough, suddenly big enough to fit the ring buried in the bottom of Karen's duffel.

He dresses numbly in Sam's clothes, the fit close enough, and barely remembers the neat handwriting necessary to leave a note.

Back in the starlit parking lot, he just chooses a direction and takes off on foot. His stride is fast and ragged, and he doesn't stop until he's exhausted, all but collapsing into the grass. He crouches there for an eternity, shivering and breathing too hard as he tries to quiet the maelstrom in his head.

Too slowly he picks himself up and dusts off his hands. A window glints at him across the dry yard, his own face all hard angles reflecting back at him and driving the point home. He realizes the sun has risen just barely past the horizon, and the eerie glow of new dawn has settled over the world.

He can't _not_ touch his stomach, where there sure as hell isn't a baby anymore, and feels numb and empty in too many ways.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He can't convince his feet to direct him back to the motel until hours later, no way to brace himself for the inevitable.

When he walks back into the room Sam is all speechless shock. Half-full laundry bags tumble from his grasp, and Dean feels a sharp pang of pride and relief that "Christo" is the first thing out of his brother's mouth.

He _aches_ when Sam hugs him, stiffens at the touch because it feels strange after a year spent slight enough to be completely enfolded. It takes him long minutes of Sam's stubborn hold to make his body relax enough to return the embrace.

"God, Dean, where have you been?!" comes the harsh whisper against his ear. "I thought you were _dead_ , I thought--"

"Easy, tiger," Dean says, grip tightening and voice slipping automatically into steady reassurance. He pats Sam on the back and runs fingers through his hair and keeps up an internal mantra of 'brother-brother- _brother_ ' because his every instinct is telling him to kiss it better.

When Sam finally lets him go, it's to move for the window and throw an expectant glance outside. Dean pretends not to see the wetness Sam rubs from his eyes. But he can't ignore the big, stupid grin that follows, and he hates himself for the knowledge that he's about to crush it.

"There's someone you have to meet." Sam all but bounces with the proclamation, brushing the curtain aside. "She's not here right now, but she'll be back soon. I… Dean, I asked her to marry me. You'll _really_ like her, man. She--"

"Sam, will you _stop_ already?" Dean cuts in. His voice feels wrecked in his throat, and Sam stops suddenly, painfully short.

Dean thinks about not telling him. He thinks about everything he has to admit if he starts this confession and nearly packs it in and plays dumb. But everything will be worse if Karen just 'disappears.' They'll spend _years_ searching, and Sam will never forgive him when Dean finally, inevitably breaks down and admits the truth. The world is a mangled ball of terror around him, a nightmare echoing on all sides, and Dean knows with heavy clarity that he can't do this anymore. He can't keep lying to Sam now that his life is out of Dean's hands.

Sam might not forgive him anyway, and Dean's insides churn at the inescapable fact that he has to do this _now_.

"Dude, are you okay?" Sam asks, cautiously closing the distance between them. "You look pale as hell. Maybe you should--"

"Karen's not coming back, Sam," Dean blurts out, sudden and sharp before he can lose his nerve.

He sees something snap in Sam's eyes, and the world spins out of his control.


	3. Chapter 3

The world freezes in that instant, startles right to a rigid standstill when Dean speaks. "Karen's not coming back, Sam."

Sam stares numb for a heavy beat, waiting for some sort of comprehension to sink in around the words. Instead of comprehension he gets a cold spike of terror through his own stubborn confusion, and he clenches his jaw hard.

"Okay. Dean. You get to start making sense right fucking now."

Dean only manages to meet his eyes for a matter of seconds before Sam watches him crumble. He lands hard on the edge of the bed, curling in around himself like something _hurts_ , and Sam stands rigid as the nonsense starts spilling from his brother's lips.

"I'm sorry." The muttering is so faint Sam can barely hear, even as he steps closer. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I had no _choice_. He was gonna kill you. He wasn't bluffing, he was a fucking _demigod_ , and I'm so goddamn sorry."

"What are you saying?" Sam asks, looming outright and feeling his throat constrict as he fights the revelation. He's being willful and he doesn't care, because _no_. No, he is _not_ making this jump. His entire chest contracts into needlepoints of horrified disbelief, questions roaring in his ears, and this can't be goddamn happening.

"He changed me, Sam." He watches Dean shake and swallow and scrub at his face with his hands. "And there were all these rules. Like… like I couldn't tell you who I was. I couldn't do anything to let you know I was okay. And I had to get you to…"

And whether Dean chokes off all on his own, or stops when Sam flees across the room, the confession stops there and doesn't resume.

"You were her," Sam realizes aloud. The words _burn_. They tear at his throat and sting his eyes, and Karen is _gone_. Karen is _Dean_ , and his brain stutters out and refuses to wrap around the revelation. "I don't believe this," he says, and his voice is quiet fury.

"Sammy--"

" _Don't_. Don't you goddamn call me that. Not now."

Dean clams up, and the silence that settles in is explosive, echoing with all the things they aren't going to say, all ragged edges and angry tension. Dean's eyes are clouded when they snap up and lock with his, the moment stretching grotesque between them.

Dean looks shattered, and Sam doesn't care. He's stuck where he stands, something like desperation vibrating through him as he tries and fails to process the last five minutes.

When he stops trying, his hands have already found the car keys. He doesn't say a word. Just steps out into the afternoon, gets into the Impala, and finds the quickest road out of town.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean stays put for a week while he waits for Sam to come back. He knows he'll hear the familiar roar of engine outside, eventually. His brother can't stay gone. It's necessary space, and Dean gets that, but the world isn't big enough for Sam to hide in and he can't stay away forever.

In the meantime, Dean keeps paying for the same room. Staying put for so long would normally make him itch, but the world is disjoint around him and nothing feels quite real.

He passes the days on his feet, letting them take him from one end of town to the other. He remembers to eat, though it's mostly afterthought. Tries to hustle at a couple of the bars, not because he needs the money but in the hopes that the challenge will ground him. He loses more money than he makes, the angles all wrong again, and it feels like starting from scratch.

The numb haze bleeds away too slowly, and it's still lingering around the fractured edges of his thoughts when Sam comes back seven days later. Dean can tell his brother is still pissed, still doesn't have his head screwed on straight, but that's not much surprise. Dean is just relieved to see him back in one piece.

"Hey," he says, hands stuffed in his pockets. The sky is mottled gray and darker-gray, middle of the afternoon and he hasn't moved from the parking lot where he found the Impala waiting. Sam stands in the doorframe, not quite leaning and not quite upright, posture rigid and cheeks stained dark by the circles under his eyes.

"I want to know what happened."

"I told you what happened." Dean holds his ground, seven feet between them and it's not nearly enough. He needs to follow Sam inside, needs Sam to come out to him, needs to _not_ be having this conversation because there's no right place or time for the things that need explaining.

"No," Sam says simply. "You mumbled some shit about rules and a demigod." A sharp look silences Dean's protest. "You said you had no choice, and I believe you," he continues, and Dean can tell how much the words cost him. "But I gotta know what went down. So get your ass in here and talk."

Dean has spent seven days following wherever his feet lead him, so it doesn't even occur to him to resist when they trudge him past Sam and into the room. The door swings shut on a squeak, and he sits stiff on the side of the bed. Sam is there, five feet away and still too close, leaning against the doorframe and wearing an expression Dean doesn't want to read.

"So," Sam says. "A demigod."

"Yeah. Trickster." Dean forces himself to meet the accusing stare head-on.

"And it was going to kill me why?"

"He wanted to make a bet. Said if I didn't play my end then the stakes were forfeit." A car screeches by on the road outside, the sound interrupting his thoughts. "I couldn't let him kill you, Sammy. Couldn't let him just _take_ you like that."

"What kind of bet?"

"A bet for your life. It was a game, but he was dead serious about it, and breaking any of the rules would mean _I_ lost and _you_ died."

"All that stuff you said about not being able to tell me anything?"

"Yeah." Dean's head isn't quite keeping up with the conversation, and his resolve falters enough to let his eyes wander. Past the window, along the crack in the far wall, anywhere but his brother.

"So why?" Sam asks, and for a second Dean doesn't know what he means. "Why all this?" Dean catches the accompanying gesture in his peripheral vision, a futile wave at the air between them, and his breath hitches somewhere painful in his chest.

"Part of the bet," he finally admits. He resolutely avoids Sam's eyes and forces the truth past the lump in his throat. "I had to be your girl." He's got other theories. Ideas that go with the final hurdle, with whatever the mysterious other requirement was. But he's not even letting those out to play in his own head, and there's no way in hell he's admitting them to Sam.

His resolve fails him again, this time drawing his eyes up to catch his brother's response. He nearly misses it, the minute widening of eyes already shining with anger, and then Sam's walls are up between them. So much more needs to be said, but if Sam doesn't ask then Dean is _done_. If no more gets out, then maybe he can still put the pieces back together.

There's only so much truth either of them can take right now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They keep Dean's return to themselves for a full week before it occurs to Sam to call Ellen and Bobby with reassurances. The time is testament to how utterly jacked they are, and Sam wishes he had space in his head to feel guilty about being inconsiderate. God knows they all deserve better, especially everyone at the Roadhouse, for a year of perpetual support in the face of all hopelessness.

He knows he leaned on them harder than he had any right to, and they stepped right up and gave him everything they could and more. Sam owes them this much. His hand still shakes as he flips through his contacts.

The phone rings out once, twice, a third time before Ellen's familiar voice says, "Harvelle's Roadhouse," warm in his ear.

"Ellen, hi. It's Sam. Is this a good time?"

"Of course, Sam. How are things? You haven't been by in ages, we were starting to worry. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, things are great," Sam lies through his teeth. He grits his jaw tight, forces his voice to reflect easy relief. "Dean's back." The words rake harsh across his throat, and Dean picks that unfortunate moment to shoulder his way back into the room. Sam offers a tight smile, insincere but trying, and watches Dean pause to take in the phone and the tense posture. He keeps quiet, dumping his jacket across a chair and closing the door behind him.

"Oh, thank god," says Ellen. "How? What happened? Is he okay?"

"It's… complicated," Sam dodges. His eyes slide away as Dean settles in on the far bed and rummages around in the plastic bag he carried in with him.

"You're going to have to do better than that, honey," says Ellen. Her voice is teasing, but there's a steel undercurrent of _more_ beneath it.

"I can't, really, is the thing. Sorry, but…"

"It's okay, Sam. So when are you coming by?"

"What?" Sam asks, embarrassed at sounding so startled.

"When can we expect you? You're stopping in, of course. I'll bet money that brother of yours needs good beer and a proper meal."

Sam actually laughs at that, at the unfamiliar and maternal tone to her voice. Dean _always_ needs good beer and a proper meal, and he catches Dean in his peripheral vision, startling at the sound of Sam's amused snort.

"We will. We're sort of in the middle of something right now, but we'll stop by as soon as we can," he says, and simultaneously swears to himself that they'll put it off as long as possible. The words are enough, if barely, and Ellen lets him off the hook with an order to give Karen and Dean her regards and a quick goodbye.

"You want a ho-ho?" Dean asks, when Sam tosses his phone aside. It's a peace offering, almost imperceptible, and even through the continuing hum of something like fury in his head, Sam responds to it on instinct.

"You know those things rot your teeth _and_ your brain, right?"

"And they do it all with delicious, creamy filling," Dean says, smirk deliberate before he stuffs one in his mouth whole. Sam is torn between frustration and sympathy, because he can't ignore the edges of slightly _off_ that carry Dean's delivery. The reminder isn't enough, completely insufficient the knowledge that this sucks for Dean every bit as much as it sucks for him. It can't counter the angry energy that still sings through his veins every time he looks at his brother, and he has to glance away before Dean sees it all scrawled across his face.

He's got no idea how to move past this, no idea where to even _start_. Selective denial is pretty much the only way to go, not like they ever deal with _anything_ head on. A couple more days, weeks maybe, and Sam will be able to start stuffing it all away into the darker corners of his brain, behind the stubborn walls that will let him not think about it. They just need more time to repress, Sam tells himself, and he might be lying when he swears he'll find a way to handle it.

But the fact is, they can't stay like this. Trying, and pretending and carrying on like things will ever be okay, it's not going to work. Give it a few days, a week, a month of this, and something will have to give. The only question left is whether it crushes them both.

Sam can't really face the thought of calling Bobby just now. The five minute conversation with Ellen has left him feeling wrung out, and Dean is sitting there watching him with eyes gone dark. He'll volunteer to go get coffee tomorrow, call Bobby while he's safely out of the hotel room.

In the meantime, he just needs to breathe. Breathe and not look at Dean, and tell himself it will ever be enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean thinks it should be easier than this. The whole time he was Karen he'd waited, figuring when he unraveled the mess and won the bet he could put his walls back in place and force himself back to normal and _okay_. He wasn't expecting this, the hollow cling of everything that's gone wrong. Even his bones ache with failure, and with things he's _not_ taking the time to think about.

The bar is loud and tacky around them. It's a seaside theme, not really in keeping with the fact that they're in the middle of Ohio, but the beer on tap is good and people are everywhere. Noisy, distracting, reassuring _people_ , and Dean is grateful for other conversations to watch and listen in on.

Sam is silent across from him, a tall monster of a table between them, and Dean risks occasional glances to check his brother is taking in the crowd instead of moping into his beer. The expression he sees is a careful neutral; eerily similar to the one he's been wearing himself for the past month. It makes him edgy, way too weird not being able to read behind it, and how can Sam be _right there_ and still so far away?

"Game of darts?" Dean asks, hopeful but not really. He's not surprised when Sam shakes his head.

"Yeah, we both know I'd kick your ass, anyway," he says, tossing back a long swallow of beer.

"In your dreams, shorty," says Sam, and Dean nearly chokes. It sounds almost _normal_ , and god but the words are a relief.

"Is that a challenge, Sammy? Want me to show you how it really is?"

"Thanks, but I'll pass. Everyone says you shouldn't encourage children when they act up."

"You calling me juvenile, baby brother?" Dean asks, feeling the ever-present tension ease just slightly in his gut. He quirks a deliberate eyebrow, kicking Sam under the table.

"No, Dean. I'm calling you a child." Sam's expression is still closed off, and maybe Dean is hallucinating the lighter glint in his brother's eyes, but it feels so close to right that he can't stop the slow grin spreading across his face. The silence between them is easier the second time it settles in, almost natural and no longer stuffed full of broken pieces. Dean goes back to his people-watching, slumping along his edge of the table and eyes roving between the myriad short skirts and low-cut tops milling about the room.

He catches sight of something delicious at the bar two minutes later. Red shirt, blue eyes, black hair swooping artistically along her shoulders. Her fingers slide the length of a martini glass, and for a moment he thinks she's looking at him. When his smile goes unnoticed, he realizes her hungry look is all for Sam.

"Dude," he says, kicking his brother under the table.

"What?" Sam asks, kicking him right back.

"Red shirt. At the bar. Totally checking you out." Dean hasn't taken his eyes off the woman, and when Sam raises his head and accidentally makes eye contact, Dean doesn't miss the slow, deliberate smile that spreads wide across her face. It's closer to a leer, her teeth closing over her lower lip, then a beautifully executed toss of her hair before she turns back to the bar and her drink.

Sam has tensed up again by the time Dean drags his eyes away, staring straight into his beer just like Dean's been trying to prevent all night. He knows his brother doesn't do casual sex, knows it a hell of a lot more intimately than he ever planned to. But he's pretty sure Sam needs this, needs something to put between the _then_ and the _now_ , even if it doesn't mean jack shit in the bigger scheme of things. Their ease of a moment before has withered away, but he plasters a smile on his face and leans forward onto his elbows.

"You should go for it, man. Bet she can do fantastic things with those fingers."

"No thanks," Sam mutters. He stares dully at his drink, like it's more interesting than Dean, or this bar or the total babe scoping him out from across the room.

"Dude, why not? She's _smoking_ hot."

"I'm not really in the mood," Sam bites out. "Last time I got near a girl, I asked her to marry me and she turned out to be my _brother_."

Which is really all it takes to drag Dean to a grinding halt. His ears ring like too close an explosion, and the forced grin melts instantly from his face. He shuts up, because what the hell else is he supposed to do, and spares Sam enough of a glance to figure out that his brother is _not_ going to look at him.

There's still no point in heading back to crash out, embarrassingly early in the evening as it is, and the next couple hours pass in sullen silence and more beer. Dean thinks he's doing a pretty good job maneuvering around the edges of tipsy until he tosses a handful of cash on the table and slips to his feet. Sam follows, ignoring his momentary wobble, and grabs the keys once Dean fishes them from his pocket.

The drive is silent, taut and aching and fractured into useless pieces. Dean should keep his mouth shut. The world is tilting just a little, which means talking is a bad idea and he goddamn knows it. They've got five minutes of driving left, and he should leave well enough alone.

"I know you were seriously in love with her, Sam," he says instead. The car swerves almost imperceptibly, and Dean bites his lip.

"Dean. Shut up."

And he tries. He really does, because there are so many things that could come out of his mouth and rip them both to messy shreds. Only, for some reason his head and his mouth can't seem to reach an understanding, and the words just keep coming.

"I _know_ , Sam. Those were the terms. I wouldn't be _me_ again if you hadn't--"

" _Dean_ ," Sam snarls, hitting the brakes too hard and making Dean bite his tongue.

"I'm just saying--" Sam's hand cuts him off this time, heavy palm reaching out and closing warm and heavy over his mouth.

"No. You're not 'just saying' _anything_. I don't want to hear it. You get me?"

Dean nods, the gesture stiff against the weight of Sam's hand.

It's only once Sam has drawn back and climbed out of the car that Dean realizes they've arrived. The parking lot is dark and empty, his brother's form quick to retreat through the door to their room, and Dean waits ten minutes before following him.

Sam is already in bed and feigning sleep when he crosses the threshold. That's just fine by Dean, no more chances to say shit he's not supposed to. He strips down and climbs into his own bed, back to Sam and eyes open in the gloom.

It takes him hours to sleep, head still spinning a little, and he's not sure if it's the beer or the conversational whiplash. Either way, even in his dreams the world is pitched uneven and throwing him off. Nothing makes sense, and he wonders if it ever will again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A couple more days, and they can't really justify putting off their visit to the Roadhouse any longer. When Ellen calls, all maternal impatience and pointed reminders that Sam _promised_ , he tells her they're two days out and on their way. It's the truth, the two days out part anyway, and he could probably have fudged it and gotten them a three-day reprieve. But putting off the inevitable this long has just left an awkward discomfort settling in his gut. They can get this over with quickly, in and out without actually answering any of the unavoidable questions, and then go back to failing at 'normal'.

Dean just shrugs when Sam says they're heading out, an indecipherable "Whatever, dude," dripping off his tongue as they climb in the car and drive.

They've been on one hunt since his brother's return, and even Dean had to admit it was an unmitigated disaster.

The thing is, Dean has _always_ been reckless. Just as likely to hurl himself into the line of fire as to heed the minimalist voice of reason in his head and run the other way. Sam is used to his brother's more than occasional stupidity, readily familiar with having to compensate for it. So yes, Dean's recklessness is nothing new.

But it's not even in the same ballpark as the shit he pulled trying to take down his half of a vampire nest in South Dakota, nearly getting them both killed six times over. They were down for a week, laying low and licking their wounds, and when Sam put an indefinite ix-nay on further hunts he met with eerily little resistance.

Sam knows he should be more worried than pissed. Recurring martyr complex aside, it's not _like_ Dean to be sloppy. It's especially unlike him to nearly get _Sam_ killed in his macho stunts. It cuts against the protective instinct hardwired into his brother's brain. Add to that the number of fights he's caught Dean throwing himself into since then, and rationally Sam knows he should be freaked right the hell out.

But it's already too noisy in his skull, a sickening clash of things he's not thinking about as they collide with everything he can't _stop_ thinking about, and his hands have barely stopped shaking in the month since Dean's return.

He's got no room in his head for anything but fury right now, so they drive toward Harvelle's and keep right on not goddamn talking about it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next day feels pretty much exactly the same as every day previous, and Dean glowers at the setting sun and the road ahead. He bitched until Sam handed over the keys that morning, and as the highway disappears beneath them he draws what calm he can from the familiar purr of his baby's engine, reverberating through the wheel beneath his hands. They stopped for burgers twice and otherwise drove straight through a dry, dusty day. They've made good time, and if they plow straight ahead they could be at the Roadhouse by morning. They won't be, because Dean knows he's not the only one itching to get off the road and stretch his legs.

A sign twenty miles later offers tribute to the Happy Parrot Inn, and he takes the exit straight past a sign putting the town's population at about six hundred. They get a room and find a bar in record time, settling in on tall stools in a dark, stifling corner.

Through the itching ache of everything that can't be said, shots of something stronger than usual strike them both as a brilliant idea. Sam waves down the bartender, intentions clear, and Dean only feels a twinge of uncertainty before acquiescing to the plan. As long as Sam stays ahead of him, Dean is confident in his ability to not stick his foot in it a second time.

Hangovers and the Roadhouse are a bad combination, but both of them are wound tight enough to snap from faking the status quo day in and out. When the bartender approaches, Dean offers her an easy smile, a carefully counted pile of cash and says, "Leave the bottle, would ya?"

She returns his smile, brushes his fingers as she takes the money, and Sam downs three shots before Dean can even get him to fill the second glass.

Sam is completely toasted by the time they trudge their way back for the night. In all fairness, Dean is drunk, too. But he's cautiously skirted the edges of way too drunk to watch his tongue, and managed not to do or say anything stupid all evening. He's relatively steady on his feet, but balancing his brother through the parking lot turns out to be a difficult task.

"Easy, Sasquatch," he mutters. "God, what were _you_ thinking about that made those last three shots look like a good idea?"

He feels Sam's eyes on him, dark and heavy as he fumbles with the key and throws the door open. Two jackets find their way carelessly to the floor, and Dean has barely shut the door behind them when Sam shoves him against it so hard that the back of his skull reverberates with the impact.

And Sam is _there_ , right goddamn there, enormous hands on either side of Dean's face and, oh god, _kissing_ him. It's not the drunken farce of a kiss that Dean would have expected if he'd seen this coming. It's _angry_ , harsh and intruding and expressing all the things their unspoken agreement forbids saying in words. He feels Sam's teeth, not teasing but intent as his brother's kiss takes, punishing Dean for transgressions there aren't enough apologies in the world for. Dean doesn't offer even a hint of resistance to Sam's invading tongue as it sweeps past his lips and delves practically down his throat.

When Sam draws back, Dean gasps for breath. He gasps again seconds later when Sam's lips, then teeth close hard on the flesh just beneath his right ear.

"Sam!" he whispers, a startled hiss of surprise as he raises a hand between them in belated resistance. Because bad, bad, _bad_ idea. They'll be at the Roadhouse tomorrow, and what if people _see_? What if they figure it out? But Sam grabs the offending hand by the wrist and pins it to the door above Dean's head. Sam's other hand slides up the nape of his neck, along the base of his skull. He grips his fingers hard in what there is to grasp of Dean's hair and gives a commanding yank.

Dean grunts his startled discomfort and feels his neck arch against that hold, his throat bared as Sam moves down from his ear. Licking and biting his way along Dean's throat, and Dean honest to god whimpers. Dean bites down hard on his own lower lip, already raw and swollen, and he's not goddamn strong enough for this.

He could throw Sam off easily. Sam is way too drunk, so much more tanked than Dean, and if incapacitating him requires knocking a couple teeth loose, Sam will forgive him in the morning.

But Sam's body is heavy and real against him; Sam's lips so familiar against his skin that Dean burns with memory. They'd played at it like this a couple of times, rough and ragged and desperate. They'd gone at it genuinely angry even fewer, but through the fury of Sam's touch Dean can feel something that makes it impossible to put up any real struggle against Sam's hands, still pinning him to the door and fisted in his hair.

"You're such a whore," Sam whispers suddenly against the shell of his ear, not releasing either hold, drunk and furious and maybe this has been coming since Dean first told him Karen was gone, because everything is transparent through that voice. "A _whore_ , Dean. And I want every goddamn hunter in that Roadhouse to see it."

"Sam," he strains, but whatever else might have meant to come out of his mouth, it strangles away into a groan as Sam resumes his trail along Dean's neck, suddenly deliberate and purposeful as he closes his lips over too sensitive skin, sucking and biting to mark. Dean's free hand is clutching in useless spasms against Sam's sleeve, and he's not sure how long it's been there but damned if it's doing him any good.

Dean has trouble getting his eyes to focus when Sam finally draws back, hands dropping from both his hair and wrist. He stares at the ceiling for long moments before he can bring his eyes to Sam's face.

Sam isn't waiting for his eyes. His own are glued to Dean's throat, something dark in his gaze as he appraises his handiwork. Dean can't read Sam's expression, wonders if it means his brother's wrath is spent. When Sam takes a full step back and away, free from the support of being pressed flush against Dean's body, he sways on his feet. Dean sees it and remembers how very drunk Sam is, feels the tilting numbness in his own brain and again the vengeful stab of guilt that he's too weak for this.

He doesn't have long to idle over the guilt. When Sam finally tears his stare from Dean's throat to find his face, Dean realizes his brother's fury is nowhere near spent. It flashes behind his eyes, and Dean resents the foot of space between them, resents that he's in the wrong body and can't do a goddamn thing to soothe away that look and the pain behind it.

"Sam," he says again, knows it won't do any good. He hasn't even figured out what more to say before Sam is again upon him. No lips or teeth or angry kiss this time as he grabs Dean and spins him, slams him against the door and presses up close behind him. Dean knows where this is going, knows it as sure as he knows how sick it is that he needs it. Sam is hard, erection searing Dean through their clothes as he's crushed against the weathered wood.

"Sam, you're drunk," he tries once more, knows it's because he has to.

"Yeah," Sam agrees, hands already undoing Dean's belt, unbuttoning and unzipping and yanking Dean's pants down over his hips. His breath is hot on Dean's ear, on the skin of his throat still glistening with saliva.

Dean follows the implicit command when Sam presses two fingers to his lips. He draws them in and sucks them slick, Sam's body a furnace of tension and other things against his back. He grunts and squirms when those fingers slide into him, saliva nowhere near enough as Sam twists and scissors them to work him loose. There's that spot that could make this good, or better anyway, and Sam isn't even trying to find it as he works his enormous digits in to the last knuckle, because that's not what this is about.

Dean fights to keep his muscles lax, to force his own stubborn body into cooperation. He drags in a ragged breath when Sam finally pulls his fingers free, bracing himself for what comes next as he listens to Sam unzipping his jeans and spitting into his hand.

Even braced and ready, the slow, stretching intrusion of Sam's cock drags embarrassing noises from Dean's throat and makes his eyes burn with the beginning of tears. One hand drops to Sam's wrist where he grasps at Dean's hip, not so much as a moment's pause in the slow, steady slide. Sam stops when he has no further to go, just pauses with no air between them, his breathing thick and heavy.

"Jesus," Dean hears him mutter, and knows the pause isn't for his benefit. His hand on Sam's wrist grips harder, and he struggles against the sensation of too damn much inside him, of splitting in two right from the point where his brother's dick spears into him, a burning stab of heat. Sam is flush against him, hairline to feet, and one arm snakes around Dean's middle in something that's almost an embrace. His other hand, the one Dean's fingers still clutch uselessly, maintains a firm hold, using Dean's body for leverage. And still that sensation of filled to the breaking point, of Sam inside him like he never felt as Karen, Sam's cock taking up every spare centimeter and then some.

Dean bites off a string of curses and gasps as Sam finally, _finally_ moves to bring himself off. His eyes unfocus as Sam drives in and out against flesh that fast feels raw and used. Harsh breathing against his ear to mirror his own, and Sam thrusts hard, deep, _desperate_ into Dean's body.

Dean doesn't dare touch himself. It's already too much. The burning rhythm behind and inside him, Sam's grunts and groans against his throat, Sam's hands severe as they draw him closer.

And even with all those months as Sam's 'girl', this is the first time Sam has fucked him without a condom. The slick, wet heat spreads through him with Sam's wordless cry, leaves him feeling wrung out and shattered with the enormity of what just happened.

He crumples to the ground after Sam pulls out, arms against the door and face buried between them. He hears Sam stumble into the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind. The sink turns on, and Dean doesn't really give a shit about cleaning up for himself. His head is still swimming, the world tilting enough to tell him tomorrow morning is going to suck if he doesn't hydrate like crazy before he sleeps, but he can't bear the thought of seeing his brother's face when he emerges from the bathroom, clean but still so very drunk, and who knows what Dean can screw up yet tonight.

So Dean shucks his jeans and pulls his boxers back on. He pulls free of his flannel but retains the extra armor of his t-shirt as he climbs into bed and buries himself beneath the comforter.

When the bathroom door opens all of five minutes later, Dean is already acting out unconsciousness. He waits for the sound of Sam sliding into his own bed, for the sudden blackness behind his eyelids when his brother turns off the bedside lamp.

The night is heavy and humid, shattered in brand new ways, and Dean doesn't sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Sam opens his eyes into late morning light, he feels like crap. His head thrums angrily, and his stomach is busy wrapping itself in nauseating cramps that throwing up won't do a damn thing to relieve. He drags himself out of bed and into the bathroom with his eyes squinted mostly shut. A shower helps a little. Cupping his hands under the faucet and drinking handful after handful of water helps more. Two tablets of extra strength pain relievers make him feel human again as he brushes his teeth and spits into the sink.

Back in the room and halfway into a clean pair of pants, Sam realizes that Dean's bed is empty. In the time it takes him to button and zip, his brain wakes up and fills in what it can of the night before, and the sudden flash of memories behind his eyes sends him stumbling back and onto the edge of his bed.

His eyes fly to the door, the scene of the disaster. Everything echoes in pieces, but the pieces are bitingly clear. Slamming Dean's head back against the wood, pinning his wrist, the anger Sam's been harboring spilling out as vengeance along his brother's throat, body, the burn of his dick up Dean's ass with nothing but spit, and he swallows back bile. He can't stand or breathe for a black, dizzying stretch of seconds, reality sharp and heavy against his senses as he finally drags himself upright.

He doesn't know where Dean is, but this town is small and his brother can't hope to hide from him now. His last clean sweatshirt hangs from the back of a chair, and he pulls it over his head and yanks at the doorknob.

And stops short, because Dean is sitting there on the stoop just outside their room. The car is five feet away, glistening bright and painful in the sun, and Sam realizes it must be nearly noon. Dean holds a cup of coffee in his hands. The discarded lid and a second, untouched cup sit beside him on the concrete, and Sam swallows hard when Dean turns a glance over his shoulder and their eyes lock together.

"Hey," Dean offers lamely.

"Hey," says Sam, and they both fail to stop staring at each other for long, burningly awkward minutes. Sam can't see the right side of Dean's throat from here, but his brother's lips offer evidence enough of last night's abuse. Sam swallows hard and takes two jerking steps to his brother's side, lowers himself to sit.

"This for me?" he asks, reaching for the covered cup of coffee without removing the lid.

"Yeah," says Dean, downs the last gulp from his own and then tosses it aside. Sam watches Dean's fingers clasp and unclasp in his lap until Dean realizes he's doing it, then holds his hands in a whitening grip between his knees.

"Dean--"

"Don't."

The abrupt cutoff of what was doomed to be a hopelessly inarticulate apology leaves Sam feeling spun and uncertain. He's got no idea what to say, so he opts to sit in silence and drink his lukewarm, bitter caffeine.

"Sam," Dean finally says, and this time when Sam raises his eyes his brother is looking straight at him. It gives him a clear view of the colorful stretch of Dean's throat. Bitten bruises and dozens of mottled hickeys trail up from the collar of his t-shirt, dragging Sam's breath somewhere sudden and harsh. Dean ignores the startled stare and presses on. "I know you're pissed at me, man. And you got every right to be, I'm not saying that's wrong." Dean stops there, swallows hard and sudden and looks purposely away. "But I can't do this."

"Did I hurt you?" Sam asks in a terrified whisper, and _god_ but it's a stupid question. A stupid question that he _has_ to ask, because everything he remembers of last night is coming to him through the fragmented haze of too many shots. His head pounds its reminder, and he watches Dean with terror into his gut.

Dean shakes his head no instead of answering aloud, still not raising his eyes from the chipped paint of the parking lot at their feet. The gesture is almost certainly bullshit, but the denial itself is such a relief that Sam nearly gasps out loud.

When Dean raises his head suddenly, Sam is trapped. They stare each other down, something thick, heavy and indecipherable between them. Something almost like guilt shines behind Dean's eyes, and Sam can't make any sense of whatever it is darkening that look. He can't ask, can't trust himself to say _anything_ , really, without making everything exponentially worse. Whatever spell settles into their silence, Dean is at last the one to break it.

"Come on, dude. I let you sleep it off too long. We're going to be late meeting Ellen." He stands as he speaks, subtle about the care of his movements, but Sam sees it anyway.

"Dean, no!" Sam is on his feet the same instant, eyes wide and incredulous. "We can't go to the Roadhouse _now_. You look--"

"Like someone fucked me stupid last night? Thanks for the heads up, dude, but I _was_ aware of that."

Sam stares at his brother in complete disbelief, can't read the look leveled back at him.

"Dean--"

" _Sam_. Relax. No one in their right mind will connect it to you. You're my _brother_ , remember?"

Sam flinches at the words, at the indecipherable tone that gives him nothing to work with. But it's true, and what harm can it do Dean's reputation to walk into a bar looking like he just got some serious play? It occurs to Sam, quite suddenly, that this might break Jo's heart. It'll piss her off at the very least. It occurs to him less suddenly, and more reluctantly, that there might be a possessive molecule of his own brain that's glad for it.

"Fine," he mutters, stuffing the thought away and throwing his empty cup in a nearby trash can. "Let's go."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The world is coated in a persistent drizzle when they pull up to the Roadhouse around four, the gravel-sand parking lot moist and clinging to their soles. The tired gray is a close match to Dean's mood, matches Sam's, too, if his thickly knit brow is any indicator. It was a conversation they needed to have, a whole mess of things that _had_ to be said, and Dean can't figure out why everything feels more jacked-up than before.

Jo's reaction to the vivid decoration along his throat is pretty much exactly what Dean expects. Her façade isn't quite flawless, eyes widening and mouth thinning into an accusing line, dead giveaways before she manages to smooth her features back into a careful neutral. She doesn't mask it _badly_ , exactly, and Dean pretends he doesn't notice.

The reunion is relieved but awkward, hugs from Jo and Ellen both, and even Ash gives him a heartfelt handshake. Demanding curiosity digs in from all directions, but Dean just puts on his best apologetic smile and says, "I'm not actually supposed to talk about it. Top-secret stuff, would have to kill you if I told you, you know the drill." It's weak, but maybe something in his eyes says more than he means to, because everyone backs right the hell off.

"So, Sam. Where's that girl of yours?" Ellen asks to change the subject, and Dean's heart lodges firmly in his throat.

"Couldn't make it," says Sam. Dean fights the urge to stare at him in open awe, because the response didn't miss a single goddamn beat. "She said to tell you hi, and she's sorry she missed a chance to abuse your hospitality."

Ash has already disappeared, back to his lair or wherever it is he goes when he's elsewhere, and Ellen flashes a humoring smile. She grills them for a few more minutes, easy bantering questions, before excusing herself.

"Sorry, boys, but I've got errands to run before the rush. Jo, honey, top them off and make sure they've eaten."

Jo rolls her eyes, offers them food that they turn down, and then refills their beer without bothering to ask. She actually waits for the door to swing shut before a more serious look crosses her face. Dean holds his breath as she aims her expression of quiet concern straight at Sam.

"Seriously, where's Karen?"

This time Sam drops quite a few beats before managing to respond. "Gone," he says, eyes downcast. "Karen's… she left."

Jo probably couldn't look more surprised if she'd been told she missed the end of the world, and Dean grits his teeth, bites his tongue and fights to stay out of the conversation.

"What do you mean she left? You mean for good? Why the hell would she do that?"

Dean can see Sam weighing possible answers in his head. Truths and half-truths and outright lies, gauging what will be enough to sate Jo's curious consternation without giving them away. He can tell the instant Sam is decided, and prays the answer his brother gives is the right one.

"I asked her to marry me. She said no." Which, shit, but Dean isn't ready for Sam to say _that_. A glance at Jo proves his previous theory false. Jo _can_ look more surprised. Her expression has spread open and disbelieving, shocked well beyond the moment before. Dean feels something ominous settle in his gut, but this still isn't his conversation, and anything he says might just tip the balance toward revelation.

"I don't believe it. She wouldn't… seriously, Sam. I can't believe she just said no and took off. She _couldn't_ have."

"Why not?" Sam asks. He leans forward onto his elbows, intent, face drawn tight in confusion. Dean sees the instantly uncertain expression on Jo's face and wills her to keep her mouth shut, all the while trying to figure out how to throw himself in the path of this train-wreck conversation.

"I'm not supposed to say anything," Jo admits, nowhere near the blanket 'never mind, forget it' Dean was hoping for. "I promised."

"Best keep it to yourself, then," Dean jumps in. It's a strain keeping the near panic out of his voice.

"Jo, you _have_ to tell me," says Sam, using his worried puppy face, and that's not goddamn _fair_. "I don't even know where she is. If she told you something and she's in trouble…" The lie is smooth and flawless, rings like genuine concern for a loved one, and Dean can't help but think his conniving bastard of a little brother would make a fantastic, if slimy, lawyer.

The convincing sincerity behind Sam's plea easily trumps Dean's terse warning, and Jo drops her voice to barely above a whisper when she says, "Karen was pregnant."

Dean shoves instantly off the bar stool to make his retreat, ignores the sharp stab that accompanies the sudden movement and catches Sam's jaw dropping from his peripheral vision even as he escapes. He cuts a path straight for the exit, barely hearing the words still coming out of Jo's mouth as she slips back to a normal volume.

"Look, when you find her? Please don't tell her I said anything." Too goddamn late, Dean thinks, not caring if the door slams too loud behind him as he flees into the drizzling gray of the parking lot.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Something like panic is thudding in Sam's ears when he excuses himself from his conversation with Jo and dashes out the door after his brother. His guilt pales to _nothing_ in the face of suddenly so much worse, and his feet can't carry him fast enough to outrun it.

Dean has made good time, has a head start straight past the gravel lot and out into the grass, and Sam isn't surprised when he calls Dean's name and is ignored. Sam breaks into a run, finally catching up next to a startlingly familiar oak. He ducks right into Dean's path and stares his brother into stopping. Dean's eyes, when they find his, are wide and wild.

"Is it true, Dean?" And of _course_ it's true, or Dean wouldn't have booked it the second the words left Jo's mouth. But guilt and terror are singing thick under Sam's skin, and he needs to hear Dean say it.

"Sam--"

"Is it _true_!?" He doesn't mean for his voice to rise, for the question to come out as almost a shout.

But Dean doesn't flinch, doesn't back away as he yells, "God, fuck, _yes_! I was knocked up! What the hell difference does it make _now_?"

The words freeze them both, feet planted and eyes terrified, and Sam doesn't know what to say. The slow, insistent drizzle thickens around them. Within thirty seconds they're standing in mud and rain, shirts soaked through, and they still can't move.

"Oh god," Sam whispers, and it shatters the spell.

"Yeah," mutters Dean, turning away in a smooth, deliberate motion and running fingers through sodden hair.

"Was it m--?" Sam cuts his question short, because he knows he's already used up his idiocy quota for the rest of his goddamn life. Dean is standing all of two feet away, dripping rain and maybe too shattered to fix, and Sam doesn't have the first clue how to get them past this. You break it you buy it, and Sam knows he made too much of this mess all on his own.

He doesn't even realize Dean is moving until his own hand reaches out to grab his brother's arm and hold him from retreat. Dean turns expectant eyes on him, not dragging away from Sam's touch. Just waiting, and Sam doesn't know _why_ he has to know, but the words are out of his mouth before he actually thinks them.

"How long?"

"Doesn't matter."

Sam lets go his grip, hand dropping useless to his side, and when he speaks his voice is quiet, a request instead of a demand. "Tell me anyway?" He can barely see through the dripping, clinging mass of his bangs, and brushing them aside doesn't really help. But he catches the minute slump of Dean's shoulders, the posture reflecting maybe surrender or maybe something else.

"Four months," Dean finally says. "Maybe more. It wasn't going to stay a secret much longer."

"And now?" Sam asks, knows it's ridiculous and still can't stop the question.

"Not still pregnant, dude." Dean levels this _look_ at him, this conflicting mix of exasperation, bemusement and underlying pain that Sam goddamn _knows_ he should have acknowledged sooner. But Dean is still talking, saying, "My uterus disappeared when I got my dick back," and this is as helpless as Sam has ever felt.

He wants to hug his brother, but he figures it's a safe assumption that's not okay. He wants to smile, and make fun of Dean's music, and superglue his hand to something embarrassing and have _any_ of it back to the way it's supposed to be.

"I'm sorry," he says instead, and it means too many things at once. Three syllables, and he needs them to be _everything_ , needs Dean to understand that he gets it now, and he fucked up, and he wants to fix all of it if he can just figure out how.

He doesn't know if Dean hears all that, or any of it, or if the words ring as useless as they feel. He might not have been able to tell anyway, but that second the sky erupts into a heavier downpour, blinding sheets of rain suddenly enveloping the world, and Sam can't even _see_ Dean.

"God _damn it_!" he hears his brother yell. He sees the rain-blurred silhouette dash away towards the car, follows behind himself an instant later.

All their towels are in the trunk, but there are three discarded sweatshirts scattered across the back seat, and they suffice. Sam is in the driver's seat, no idea how _that_ happened, but Dean doesn't look keen on braving the storm to switch places. Sam catches the flash of consideration in his brother's eyes as Dean ponders just climbing over him. Eventually he sighs and digs the keys from his pocket, hands them to Sam with a pained expression.

"We're just gonna ditch?" Sam asks. Content as he might be with this plan, it will look a little sketchy for them to disappear into the rain within half an hour of arriving.

"Jo will cover for us," Dean points out, sprawling into a more comfortable position against the seat. "She still thinks she's got a secret to keep."

It's true as anything, so Sam turns the key in the ignition. He's going to have to take it about forty miles under the speed limit to keep from driving off the road, because visibility is crap. By all rights they should stay put until the storm passes.

But Sam catches the glower on Dean's face and pulls out onto the highway instead. They'll outrun the storm if they drive far enough, and maybe that's all they can do.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean doesn't bother glancing at his watch when he wakes in the passenger seat. The Roadhouse is probably hours behind them by now, and his mouth feels dry and gross. Sam barely glances at him, eyes on the road again the same second, and both the storm and daylight are gone.

He doesn't complain when Sam takes a rest area exit twenty minutes later, reasonably sure his brother hasn't taken a break since before he fell asleep. His quirked eyebrow, illuminated by the dimly spreading streetlights along the sidewalk, goes unnoticed as Sam pulls into a stall about a million miles from the building. He kills the engine but leaves the keys in the ignition. When his brother turns the full wattage of his most concerned stare straight on him, Dean can already tell he's not going to like where this is headed.

"What else aren't you telling me?" Sam asks.

"The hell are you on about?" He's got to stay cool, got to keep it locked clean, got to make sure his mouth doesn't go revealing shit Sam's not allowed to know.

"There _has_ to be more. The baby can't be all that's bothering you, because you don't tell me jack shit unless you have to." Dean realizes that Sam must've been working things through the whole time he was out, because there's not even a second of stutter over the word 'baby'. "So now I'm telling you, you _have_ to."

"You're right," says Dean. "Enough of all the lies and secrets. Let's bare our souls and cry, maybe hold each other for awhile. That'll fix everything."

"Jesus, Dean, I'm serious. I screwed up, and I'm _sorry_ , but I can't help if you won't _talk_ to me!" Dean can hear a dozen things under the irritation in his brother's voice. There's _fear_ in there, and that scares the shit out of him.

"There's nothing to talk about, dude. And I don't need your help."

"Come on, man," says Sam, irritation and desperation in equal measures. No surprise there. Of course he's not going to buy it. But Dean's not giving up any more than he already has, more than Sam was ever supposed to know in the first place, and he grits his teeth and glowers.

" _Sam_. Back _off_. I was a woman for a year. I almost had a baby. It wasn't that bad, and I'm goddamn _dealing_ with it. I don't need you going all Psychology Today on my ass."

"Right," says Sam, and his voice is suddenly bitter. "Because pretending to be my girlfriend and letting me _fuck_ you for eight months, that wasn't so bad." Dean sees the expression darken, stark in the insufficient light through the windshield. "I would never have asked that of you."

"Drop it, Sam," he says, because it's all he's got. There's no way he's putting this into words, certainly not for Sam to hear, and if not Sam then no one.

"What really gets me?" Sam presses on, stubbornly oblivious. "What I can't figure out? How the hell were you able to fake it so long, and so _well_ , that I actually believed Karen felt the same way about me?" By the end of the question a hint of not-quite revelation has snuck into his tone. Dean's throat constricts, chokes his answer away to nothing, and he knows he's just damned himself. One pause all it takes, and Sam's eyes go wide.

"Dean. You _were_ just faking it, right?"

And if he wasn't damned before, he sure as hell is now. His voice is buried somewhere deep, his heart hammering against his ribs, and he can't even raise his head to look at Sam. The moment drags silent into three, then seven, and however this goes now, it's not going to be pretty.

"Jesus Christ," Sam finally whispers, hushed and harsh. "Dean--"

There's not a force in the universe that can keep Dean in the car for whatever Sam is about to say, and he's glad they've beaten out the storm as he swings the door open and drags himself into the night. There are trees off to the north, behind the stupid kiosk with all the vending machines, and he aims that direction. It's not quite a forest, but maybe if he finds some shadows to hide in for a few hours and keeps really goddamn quiet Sam will get it through his skull that they're _not_ talking about this.

Except Sam follows him, because Sam _always_ follows him, and when a hand closes warm and heavy on his arm he doesn't have the energy to run anymore.

"Dean, come on. Seriously."

"Fuck you, Sam."

"No," Sam says, and Dean's not even sure what it means. "This is… you can't possibly--"

"Why do you think I let you fuck me last night, Sam?" Dean demands, and didn't mean to, but what else is left? How much more damage can it do when Sam already knows too close to everything? "Why do you think I let you mark me up like a cheap hooker? Did you honestly think you overpowered me?"

"No," Sam gapes, and it's not an answer to the question. It's a useless repetition, an empty denial, and Dean is suddenly so tired he can't breathe.

"Christ, let me go already." He drags himself free of Sam's grip. "Forget it, okay? We were both drunk and stupid. Let's find somewhere to crash out so we can start looking for a hunt in the morning."

He crosses to the driver's side door, freezes at the moment of entry. He holds there, door open in his hand, and catches Sam's eyes over the roof of the car.

"We're not talking about this again. Get me?"

Sam nods shakily, apparently still numb with attempting to absorb this new information, and they climb back in and slam both doors a little too hard. The key is still in the ignition, waiting for him to turn the engine over, and as he pulls out of the rest area and back onto the interstate, Dean can tell they're both already pretending like crazy that this conversation never happened.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean doesn't brook any procrastination on the subject, and their second hunt since Karen's 'disappearance' is nowhere near the disaster of the first. Their game is on, their form is perfect, and Dean just has to _look_ at him for Sam to know which way he's supposed to run. By the time the ghilan are dead, Dean is muttering, "I goddamn _hate_ ghouls," and everything feels fresh and normal and real between them. Sam knows it's momentary, but the relief is air in his chest, and he's almost dizzy with the ease of Dean elbowing him in the side.

They found the location in time, if barely, and they each carry a sobbing mess of a seven-year-old in their arms when they trudge free of the derelict building. Twins, Angelyn and Lucille, missing for a week and nearly the latest victims. The girls' parents have figured out by now that Sam and Dean aren't detectives, backgrounds as fake as their ID's. But they obviously couldn't care less who the Winchesters really are, not through the tears and the hugs and their babies back safe and sound. Sam watches and smiles, relishes the amusement of Dean's fidgeting discomfort beside him. His brother wants to be back in the car, looking for a place to shower, rest and lick their minor wounds.

"Thank you," the mother is saying. Stepping close to draw each of them into a desperate embrace, and her voice shakes with tears and relief.

"It was no trouble," says Sam, because it's not. Killing things that take little girls, that's just one of the things they do, and thank god they got there in time for this family, but it was really no trouble at all. She laughs, a thick, fragile sound, and shakes her head.

"We have a guest room and a spare cot," she says. "It's so late, I hate to think of you boys driving yet tonight. Please stay and get some rest?"

Dean is obviously itching to turn her down, whole body tense with it, but Sam can't bring himself to say no. Her eyes are wide and sincere, genuinely concerned for them, and what harm can it do? If they leave now they'll drive until they find a crappy hotel and crash out. They could stay, sleep somewhere warm and clean for a change, and Sam can't help thinking he'd like to say goodbye to the twins in the morning, make sure they're as okay as they can be.

"We'd love to," he says, catching Dean's sharp look and deliberately ignoring it. "But only if it's not too much trouble."

"None," she says, laughing again. She scrubs her eyes dry and tucks unkempt brown hair behind one ear before disappearing down the hall.

 

With the guest room door closed behind them Sam digs in his pocket for a quarter and says, "Flip you for it." Because that cot is a sorry excuse for a sleeping arrangement, and one of them is going to be miserable. The bed, for maximum contrast, looks heavenly. Fluffed and ready and covered in a mountain of pillows. It's way too small to share, even without all the newfound uncertainties between them, and one of them is doomed to the torture device on the floor.

"Nah," says Dean, comfortable smirk evident in his voice even though Sam can't see his face to confirm it. "You take the bed, Princess. We both know I'm more badass than you."

Sam freezes the instant the words leave Dean's mouth, and a beat of expectant silence passes, his brother still waiting for a response, before Dean's own shoulders tense with realization. _Princess_. He can't have done it on purpose, Sam _knows_ it, because Dean wouldn't cross that line. It doesn't stop the ice settling hard in his gut, searing away the veneer of back-to-normal from seconds before.

Dean is still turned away from Sam, hand frozen halfway to the window where he was reaching for the blinds. It's a moment edged with panic, off balance and mutating, and Sam can't breathe for the sudden gaping hole in his chest.

When his brother turns just far enough to meet his eyes, Sam almost wishes he hadn't. It feels ragged, the connection too expressive, with Dean's lips pressed thin and his eyes dim. Waiting, and Sam doesn't even know what for. He sees months of guilt in those eyes, and can't bring himself to close the space when he suddenly needs to be anywhere but here, in this room, this close to Dean.

Sam tries to convey a nonverbal apology before he flees, though he has no idea if Dean actually gets it. Doesn't have the words to try for more as he makes his quiet way down the hall and out the back door. A moment to make sure it won't lock behind him, because he doesn't want to sleep in the damp grass waiting for an exhausted family to wake up. The moon is bright and clear and about the only thing visible above, light pollution drowning out most of the stars, and he stares long enough to force his mind back into an artificial calm. It won't hold under pressure, but it will get him through tonight, and maybe longer if neither of them pushes.

Back in the guest room, he's not surprised to find Dean 'asleep' on the cot. His legs hang off the end, and his arms are wrapped wide around a miniature mountain of stolen pillows. Sam doesn't know whether to snicker or sob, so he collapses gratefully to the bed instead. He barely takes the time to kick his shoes off and shuck his coat, and his sleep is blessedly dreamless.

 

The next morning Sam gets his chance to say goodbye, feeling light and warm when he's simultaneously tackled by tiny, identical little bodies. They cling to him until their mom orders them to let him stand, and Dean, a moment behind him and unaware of the danger he's walking into, receives the same. The girls don't say anything, eyes still impossibly huge no matter what they're looking at, but Dean takes the hugs without complaint, clings back harder than Sam expected, before herding him out the door and into the car.

"I'm sorry about last night," Dean says from the passenger seat, and Sam flinches outright. "I didn't mean to--"

"I know," he cuts his brother off. The walls he managed to put up are too fragile to do this right now, need just a little longer for the mortar to set. "I shouldn't have freaked out. It's okay." And maybe it's not okay, maybe they're still screwed to hell, but they'll figure it out. That's what they do. If it's not okay now, it _will_ be later, because Sam will be damned before he lets this tear them any further apart.

He takes a breath and shuts away the empty spot where Karen belongs, reminds himself that Dean is here and not disappearing on him again, and for now that has to be enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Their next gig actually comes from a nervous phone call. A hotel owner who knows a guy who used to be a friend of their dad's. Thought all that ghost stuff was just hogwash, but it turns out his new building is haunted, all the paperwork signed so he's stuck with it. It's not doing anything violent, but the constant rearranging of the furniture and strange noises at night are driving his customers away, and might they be able to come 'put the poor, interfering soul to rest?'

Dean assures the man that they'll be there in a couple days to check it out. It actually takes them a week, meandering along their way for once, no harm since nobody's in danger. It's a comfortable, if temporary, change from their usual frenetic pace, and Dean has to reluctantly admit that they needed it. Even the hunt feels almost like a vacation, smooth and simple, a spirit more confused than malicious, and they don't even have to burn the bones. Just give her someone to say goodbye to, and she shines her way to oblivion and whatever comes next.

But as the air between them mends, jagged edges smoothing slowly out, Dean finds it harder and harder to keep himself where he belongs in his head where Sam is concerned. The gradual ease-down from being constantly on edge leaves him new problems, because he's not constantly on his guard anymore.

He keeps slipping up, starts to call Sam 'Princess' too often, usually catching himself and covering as smoothly as he can, which isn't that smoothly at all. Sometimes he misses it until it's too late, doesn't realize what he's said until the pained look on Sam's face tips him off, and those times hurt more. Once, and once only, he calls Sam 'babe,' which is awkward as hell and makes Sam snort root beer through his nose. It would be funny if the look on Sam's face immediately after didn't sting so goddamn much, and Sam spends the rest of the afternoon resolutely not looking at him.

What's even worse is that, once the space between them is warm and familiar again, it becomes all but impossible not to touch. He can't de-program himself this fast, and his instincts stand altered and wrong. Once his guard is down, he doesn't always draw up short, not quite fast enough to avoid the not-so-brotherly connection of fingers and skin. That it makes Sam uncomfortable is obvious, and even the successfully aborted gestures can't go unnoticed or ignored every time.

 

"Shit, Sammy, I'm sorry," Dean splutters, draws his hand away for the hundredth, thousandth, goddamn _millionth_ time this week. Just a moment of contact, a split second of the heat of Sam's stomach beneath his fingers, and his cheeks burn red.

"It's okay." Sam scuffs his toe and looks away. "You didn't mean anything by it."

They keep walking, silence uncomfortable for the next few minutes, and Dean wishes to god that Sam's words were true. He knows better, knows himself with an unpleasant awareness, and maybe he _didn't_ mean anything by it, but god he still meant it. Still burns all the goddamn time if he lets himself stop and think about it, which he doesn't, because Sam is _right there_ and doesn't deserve to have that shit thrown on him.

Dean tells himself, insistent and often, that it will fade eventually. Because what else can he do? Something is still broken between them, still disconnected in his own head, and Dean doesn't have the slightest idea what comes next.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For his part, Sam tries not to be jumpy. He takes the less than conscious nicknames and touches in stride, as much as he can. Because he catches the look of guilt shining pained from his brother's eyes with each one, and every single time it tears something out of Sam to see.

Dean slowly improves, but these are habits set in stone, and Sam wonders if they'll ever go away completely. 'Princess' finally starts slipping out of Dean's automatic vocabulary, usually caught before so much as a syllable can escape. But Sam knows the tells now, knows precisely when Dean is having to fight to keep the terms of endearment from sliding free, and it sets him just as far on edge as hearing them spoken aloud.

The touches are worse, because they come accompanied by the revelation that the hole left by Karen's absence isn't nearly as empty as it should be. Which is fast followed by the realization, maybe too late in coming, that Karen wasn't just some mask Dean was wearing. Not after the first week or two. Every memory, dragged up and reconsidered, confirms that Karen _was_ Dean, in all the ways he should've realized and failed to connect the dots for himself.

They flood through his head in quick succession, crystal clear and achingly real. Karen singing along to _Enter Sandman_ , just slightly under pitch. Her penchant for chili cheese fries, always eating them in messy handfuls that left her licking her fingers clean for want of napkins. That _look_ she would give him any time he talked about his brother, sad caution glinting in her eyes. At the time, he figured she was worried about pressing him too far. Now he wonders how the hell he didn't notice. Even the dorky grin on her face after sex, Dean has held the patent on that look for years, and Sam resolves not to let his mind wander too far in that direction.

There's still the one angry, drunken fuck behind them, and Sam doesn't think he'll ever stop feeling guilty for that. Safe bet they're never going to talk about it again, and if that's what Dean needs then Sam will let him have it. Because what absolution there is to be found, he knows he doesn't deserve it. They'll keep pretending it never happened, which works just fine really, because they've got their denial skills honed sharp and solid.

Except that every accidental touch makes it harder not to think about it, every soft press of Dean's fingers against the nape of his neck, the small of his back, the edge of his thigh. They drag those thoughts out past every attempt to barricade them down, take him places he can't afford to go.

Because, Sam is horrified to realize, it's not a long jump to get from _thinking_ to _wanting_ , especially with Dean constantly so close, smiling at him sometimes like he's forgotten he's not Karen anymore.

Sam remembers a razor-edged conversation, hours after a downpour and both of them still damp in the cool night air, and learning too much about Dean's frame of mind. Dean's _feelings_. Sam doesn't know how his brother feels now. He doesn't dare ask, and he has nothing but aborted habits to go by, but it doesn't stop him from wondering. Rebellious thoughts that grow more vivid every day.

It doesn't stop him speculating on things that have no business being in his brain, and Sam is pretty sure that hell is straight ahead.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It's not long after the ghilan that Dean's mood settles dark and rank, grinding at him harder than it has any right to. He can't put his finger on it, can't really explain to Sam why he's snappy and angry and too damn tired all of a sudden.

So he settles for the next best thing and, carrying duffels over the threshold of yet another tacky hotel room, says, "I want a drink. A _long_ drink."

Sam just laughs, maybe doesn't think he means it, and Dean tosses his crap on the bed closest to the door and rolls his eyes.

"I'm serious, dude. There's an Irish pub two blocks down. We can walk it, and you can get drunk, too."

"I don't really want to get drunk, Dean," Sam says quietly.

"Come on, dude, lighten up. Just have a few rounds with me. We'll stop way before we puke. Promise." Because of course Sam doesn't want to drink. Dean knows damn well why, knows _intimately_ the guilt scrabbling around his brother's head, and maybe he should be nervous at the prospect. But the thing is, it's not going to happen again. He knows it, feels it in his sternum, _sees_ it when he catches Sam's eyes and something in them is just different. Not whole yet, but different.

And all he wants right now is a few low-key hours with his little brother, drinking his bad mood away into a more tangible hangover, leaning on Sam as they zig-zag their way home. They don't have anywhere to be in the morning, and Dean suddenly wants this so bad he's _choking_ on it.

Sam must see an inkling of it in his eyes, because the protest on his brother's lips dies away and the computer clicks shut beneath his fingers.

"Okay. But you're buying the first pitcher, and it can't be that piss-water you usually try to pass off as beer."

"Deal," Dean smirks, and drags his brother into the night.

Getting drunk goes as easily as planned, and Dean keeps his promise, settling their tab well before the heaving stage. He can't really tell where Sam is at, but Dean is that perfect level of tipsy, not quite off-balance but feeling the world twist ever so slowly around him, as they make their way along the sidewalk.

There's no leaning on each other for balance, both of them more or less steady on their feet, and Dean would maybe be disappointed by this fact, except that he's momentarily distracted by things that are supposed to be locked away somewhere safe. Somewhere dark and secure where he can pretend none of it exists. Not right at the surface of his thoughts. Not right goddamn _there_ , taunting and tormenting him, hurting just as much as that empty instant when he tucked it away in the first place.

" _Shit_ ," he whispers, loud and hoarse, earning him a startled glance from Sam. He wants to destroy something. Wants to get his hands on something he can shatter to pieces. Back at the hotel there are lamps and mirrors and all _kinds_ of breakable things. But they're in the middle of the sidewalk, five more minutes is too long to wait, and he _knows_ he'll regret it if he tries to vent the rage at that fire hydrant just ahead.

So he stops. Just freezes where he stands and lets it wash straight through him. He closes his eyes, lets his arms hang limp, feels his teeth grind as he tries like hell to just let it go.

"Dean?" Sam asks, stepping close and setting a hand on his arm.

Dean feels it like a brand and jerks away, more violently than he means to but god, he needs to not be touched right now. He doesn't know what this is, rage or mourning or what-the-hell-ever, but he moves a few feet away and sits on the curb. His legs stretch into the silent, midnight street, and he stares numb into the sky. He feels small and empty and so useless he aches with it.

Sam approaches him more cautiously this time, leaves a couple feet between them as he sits beside Dean on the curb.

"Are you okay?" he asks, tentative and a little bit scared. Dean can hear all that in his brother's voice, along with the real question, which more closely resembles 'Tell me what's hurting you.'

It shouldn't come easy. It shouldn't just empty out of him like some confession he's been waiting to make. The words should choke him tight and leave him dry, and he's not sure what it means that they don't, even when they start closer to nonsense than anything.

"I never knew they could tell that early," he admits, ignores Sam's confused tilt of an expression. "Science is amazing. And it was weird, man. I _still_ don't know what the hell he was looking at, but he could already _tell_."

"Who, Dean? Could already tell what?"

Dean can feel Sam fighting down irritation when his silence drags out. But he can't let this out too fast, not without something splitting apart. Not when it's the first time since that day he's actually feeling this shit, and he doesn't know what any of it means. He just needs a minute is all, or maybe ten of them, and Sam may not understand, but he knows to keep quiet this time.

"It was a girl, Sammy," he says, and he doesn't miss the sharp intake of breath.

"Dean…" Sam whispers, incomplete and utterly blindsided.

"A girl," Dean repeats. "And her name was Mary, and I let her down." He feels it coil inside him, feels the words singe the roof of his mouth.

"There was nothing you could've done any differently," Sam protests. His hand hovers like it wants to touch, and Dean feels too much boil up in his chest.

"Maybe not. Doesn't change anything. Fact is, I failed a Winchester that wasn't even born yet." And god, but he's too drunk for this conversation, drunk enough to be having it in the first place, and he can tell Sam is barely keeping up with him here. "I'm sorry," he adds, and isn't quite sure why.

"Sorry? Dean, what on earth _for_?"

Dean bites his tongue for a couple of beats, willing his answer away, but in the end he still says, "Because she was yours, too. I failed you both. I lost her for both of us."

"God _damnit_ , Dean," Sam huffs, and that's not really the response Dean expected. Then Sam is on his feet, hand grabbing at Dean's collar and dragging him up, and when his brother tucks him up in a tight, desperate hug Dean doesn't have it in him to protest. He buries his face against Sam's throat, no space in his head for shame or embarrassment as his fingers clutch in the fabric of Sam's hoodie.

"She's gone, Sammy," he hears himself mumble. "She's gone, and I'm so goddamn sorry."

"No." Sam's protest is stronger this time, and his grip tightens hard. "Dean, _no_. _I'm_ sorry. For not figuring it out, and for taking off like I did, and for hurting you, and… I'm sorry for _everything_ , man, and I'm sorry I don't know how to fix _any_ of it."

"No!" Dean jerks away, so far as he can, which isn't very. "Sammy, you can't--"

" _Dean_." Sam's voice is quiet and forceful and suddenly Dean can't bear to meet that expression dead-on. He stares at their feet, neatly interlocked on the pavement as Sam's hands burn steady into him. "Dean, look at me."

Dean shakes his head, numb and terrified and not entirely sure how this conversation got so quickly to careening out of his control. He isn't quite surprised when he sways free of Sam's grasp just long enough for Sam to take his face in those huge hands and force him to make eye contact.

"Shut up and listen for a second, okay?" Sam pleads. Dean closes his mouth, bites his tongue to silence the protest, because something scorched and urgent gleams behind Sam's eyes. He swallows hard and waits for the words he doesn't want to hear.

"None of this is your fault, Dean. Fucking _none_ of it. You did exactly what you had to, and you got us through it, and then I went and screwed everything up."

"Sam, no." Dean would shake his head, but Sam's grip is too tight, stubborn and insistent.

"I'm sorry I didn't know about her until it was too late," Sam presses on, and Dean resents that he sounds sober and collected while Dean feels like the world is spinning out from under him. "But if there were a way to save her, I know you would've found it. You would've stayed a woman and had a _baby_ , Dean. So don't try and tell me you failed her. It doesn't work like that." Sam started crying about halfway through his speech, and Dean feels the ugly edge of hysteria nudge up from his gut, his own eyes stinging wet in the dark.

He tries to shrug free and get away, because maybe he can still tamp it back down if Sam will stop touching him and _looking_ at him like that. He makes it about four steps before Sam is upon him, wrapping close and complete from behind, and the whip of too much buried emotion cracks loose in Dean's belly. The sobs are sudden and horrifying, hysteria a violent attack from somewhere too deep, and when his knees buckle, Sam eases them both to the pavement.

It's the alcohol doing this to him, a numb little part of his wounded pride insists. _This_ isn't how he deals with shit, breaking into a million pieces and bawling in his brother's arms like a kid with a skinned knee. He manages to quiet quickly, but Sam holds him close and careful for half an hour. The cement seeps cold into Dean's bones, has to be hell on Sam's ass, but Sam doesn't seem to notice, too busy rubbing circles into Dean's back and running fingers through his hair.

Dean shoves away with an irritated comment once he finally, _finally_ has his control back. It's a thin façade, a sorry excuse, but Sam lets him get away with it and they help each other stand.

Dean feels silly when they walk back into the room all of seven minutes later, stupid to break down in the middle of the street when security was so near. Sam gives him space once they're back, shoves him into the bathroom for first shower and putters noisily around the room the whole time.

Something feels different now, which Dean supposes makes sense. Something heavy that isn't locking his insides tight anymore. It's a slight difference, only noticeable now that he's letting himself pay attention. It wasn't _just_ Mary.

It was everything. But losing the baby was so much of it, tied in with the whole rest of the shitpile, and it would be silly to have a funeral, but the thought hits him anyway. Only four months along, no body, no proof she ever existed, because Dean had been too scared of discovery to accept the ultrasound picture at the end of that last session. No way to say goodbye to a child that might as well have been a figment of his imagination, but maybe that's what tonight was about. Dean turns off the water and towels dry, checking the mirror to confirm that yes, he still looks like crap.

Sam is still up when he emerges to tug his way into t-shirt and boxers. Dean gives it a moment, waits for the urge to fail him. When it doesn't he strides straight up and hugs his brother.

Sam startles at the unexpected embrace, takes too many seconds to raise his arms and return it.

"Thank you," Dean murmurs right in Sam's ear, not exactly sure himself what for, but certain he has to say it.

Sam seems to get it, seems to get that he should keep his mouth shut, anyway. He watches with cautious eyes as Dean awkwardly extricates himself and crawls into the bed by the door, kicking his abandoned duffel to the ground. Dean pretends not to notice the look and snaps at him to kill the lights already.

None of tonight is going to make it back into the box, which means he can't tuck it away anymore. But as he drifts his fuzzy way into oblivion, Dean thinks maybe that's okay.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam figures they're done with it after that. Dean has purged his demons, time to move on and not acknowledge it ever again. He's a smart enough boy to figure out that's how these things work when treading on Dean's emotional turf.

Which leaves him with no idea _what_ it means the next day when Dean suddenly says, "I was going to say yes, you know." It rings with an almost confessional tone, Dean's hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and trying to convey a casual air that falls somewhere short. Sam _gets_ that tone of voice, but hell if he knows what to do with it.

"Yes to what?" he asks when clarification doesn't immediately follow.

"To _marry_ you, genius.

Which makes Sam turn and stare at his brother, surprise and confusion balancing precariously, and he asks, "Seriously?"

"Yup. Doctor did an ultrasound, told me I was looking at a baby girl, and I got to really _thinking_ about it." Sam bites his tongue and doesn't dare interrupt, because he can't believe Dean is sitting there awake and sober and saying this.

Dean doesn't seem to mind his silence, though. Seems equally disinclined to stop the flow of words Sam never actually expected to hear. "I knew I couldn't do it for me. Not when I was already lying to you about _everything_ , but for her…" Dean pauses, thick and heavy for just long enough that Sam wants to drag him close and cling again. "I figured if I said yes, we could really do right by her."

"Yeah," says Sam, soft and surprised at the regret in his own voice. If Dean hears it, he doesn't acknowledge it beyond a flutter-quick glance his direction.

"Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's what did it."

"Did what?" Sam asks, all confusion again, and damn Dean's brain with its hairpin twists that are always a few degrees off and impossible to follow.

"Finally won me the bet. I'm not sure _how_ , technically. The son of a bitch never bothered explaining it, but I think that was the secret catch."

" _Secret_ catch?" Sam asks, because that's new information. Dean said Sam had to be in love, and that makes perfect, painful sense, because he sure as hell was. So in love that vengeance seeped far enough out of his head to leave room for the future, first time in what felt like forever. So yeah, he was, and maybe still is a little, except he's not letting himself go _there_ any time this century.

But Dean never said there was another catch, and now Sam can't decide if he ought to be pissed off.

"Lighten up, dude," Dean preempts him. "Like _hell_ I was admitting any of that shit before." Even though Sam can't figure out why he's admitting it _now_. "Anyway, you wouldn't have wanted to hear it."

Which is too goddamn true, and Sam feels that kidney-kick of remorse again. All the ways he let Dean down, too wrapped up in his own empty ache and fury to see his brother standing there, hurting and trying to make it right.

"I'm sorry," he says, and it feels useless on his tongue.

"No," says Dean. Sam's eyes fly straight to him, and even though Dean doesn't raise his own from the road, Sam catches the edge of something like amusement at his startled snap of movement.

"No?" he asks, presses, _has_ to.

"No," Dean repeats, amusement fading to leave space for focused intent. "You don't get to say that anymore. We're done with that conversation."

"Dean--"

"I mean it, Sammy." He glances up then, expression softening. "We're okay. I promise." And maybe it's the look on Dean's face, or maybe it's the soft reassurance in his voice, but Sam feels something hot in his chest at the words. It's a little bit relief, and a lot something else that he's not ready to name, and even once Dean's attention is back on the road again Sam can't stop staring.

He's distracted so long he doesn't notice for another ten minutes that the conversation is closed. It's not just the absence of words in the car, but the fact that the usual mask is back on his brother's face. Not the terrifying blank that he's seen too often in recent weeks. It's Dean's normal, cock-sure smirk, the one that tells the world to lay on its worst because he's god damn Dean Winchester and nothing can touch him.

It's complete bullshit, same as it's always been, but its easy return tells Sam the window of vulnerability has closed. This conversation isn't just done for now. It's _over_ , and Dean doesn't plan on sharing any more.

Which is his prerogative really, and Sam tells himself with a pathetic lack of conviction that, hey, fine by him. They're _fine_ , Dean _promised_ , and they can go back to being brothers again.

Which is what they should both want, so Sam swallows the hot pang of something in his gut and deliberately messes with the radio. He can do this, they can do this, they'll be _fine_.

And any second now Sam will start believing it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Six days later, a haunting in suburbia. Dean volunteers to take the witnesses on himself while Sam researches, nothing to do with the fact that two of them are blindingly hot. He's just that awesome an older brother, completely understanding of Sam's need to get his geek on, and Dean ignores the pointed eye-roll when he drops Sam on the front steps of the library.

"When should I come get you?"

"Don't bother. I've got no idea how long this will take."

"Fine. Have fun. But don't get too frisky with the microfiche this time."

A bespectacled man walking past overhears and gives them a horrified look, and Dean barely catches Sam's glower through his own helpless laughter. Sam calls him something nasty, but Dean doesn't actually hear it. Which is perfectly acceptable, since Dean is pretty sure it was lame and uncreative anyway.

Only he's not amused nine hours later, sun gone down and the rest of the day wasted, when Sam still hasn't called for that ride. The library can't possibly be open much longer, and Dean is well on his way past annoyed. Sam's library hard-on is nothing unusual, and maybe he hasn't gotten into one in a couple weeks, but that's no excuse to leave Dean bored out of his skull without so much as an update.

Three of the five witnesses were useless. The other two less so, but he still needs Sam and his research to go find the bones. The hot witnesses were both spoken for, one married and one engaged, and Dean is _still_ pissed about that.

Maybe it's not Sam's fault, but if he'd just call and say he had the missing puzzle pieces, they could take care of this _now_. Nothing like setting something on fire to distract a guy from the fact that he's not getting laid tonight.

"About damn time," he mutters when his phone finally rings. It takes a couple seconds of fumble to fish it out of his pocket and mute the TV.

"Hey." Sam's voice sounds tired but satisfied. "Come get me, and bring the gear."

Digging the grave and lighting the bones are easy rote, all the familiar movements of a thousand times before. Dean manages to keep his mouth shut the whole time and not _once_ rib his brother about being slow and stupid and too enamored of microfiche for his own good. Not that he's all that sure _why_ he's keeping it to himself, but there's something in Sam's demeanor throwing him off. He can't place it, can't interpret it, but it's telling him to leave well enough alone.

He holds out all the way back to the hotel, but he's not a saint, and the back of Sam's head is taunting him when he turns from sliding the lock into place.

"Research skills getting rusty, dude? It doesn't take you nine hours to find _anything_. What the hell slowed you up? And let me warn you, the _only_ right answer here involves bangin' a hot librarian in the stacks."

When Sam turns to face him, he's smiling. Dean thinks about congratulating him, except it's not the sort of smile that goes with a hot librarian. It's small and hopeful and weirdly intimate, and Dean honestly doesn't know if the sudden shiver is discomfort or something else.

"Sam? Dude, _what_? You're starting to freak me out here."

Sam's smile widens at that, a sheepish blush creeping into his cheeks as he coughs and crosses his arms and tries to contain it.

"I, uh… I found something. For you. I mean, it was yours already, but," and Sam just _looks_ at him, all careful and warm. "Anyway, I found it for you."

"Okay. And?" Because seriously, Dean's got no idea where he's supposed to be following this.

"Right," says Sam, snapping out of it and diving for his bag. He rummages for a full minute before straightening back up, and hands it over, fingers careful around the edges. Dean stares for a startled stretch, pulse suddenly rushing in his ears.

He takes a moment to remember that Sam is handing it to him, arm steady and patient, and he takes the ultrasound photo in fingers that shake with disbelief.

"What do you mean you 'found' it?" he hears himself ask.

"Yeah, 'found' might be the wrong word," Sam admits. Dean thinks, 'no shit' and stares at the image, trying to decipher it just as unsuccessfully as the first time.

"You didn't just pick one at random from some local OB's file cabinet?" Dean asks, mostly tease. Because Sam wouldn't, but he still needs to hear it.

"Doctor Aaron Thomas," Sam says. "Family Health Clinic North."

Dean isn't staring at the photo any longer, eyes too busy locked on Sam. Sam who's standing there smiling that same hopeful smile. It's the one that says he's _pretty_ sure he's done right, but maybe he hasn't and he's going to watch like crazy until he's sure they're still good. Dean knows that look, can't absorb it right now, so he goes back to the photo and lets his fingers skim lightly across it.

"How?" he asks quietly.

"You probably don't want all the details," Sam warns him. "But I _might_ be a genius, and my last credit card might be maxed out from the plane tickets."

Sam is still waiting for reassurance. Dean can tell, and he'll offer it soon, he really will, but he needs a minute, an hour… a _week_ might not be enough to absorb the weight of proof through his fingers. Real and tangible, and it hurts in the same place as before, but god, he needed this.

'Hey, baby girl,' he thinks. 'Wish like hell I could've met you.'

He drags his eyes from the photo finally, and carefully avoids looking at Sam as he takes out his wallet to tuck it carefully away. It feels like ritual, something giving way in his chest. When he raises his head Sam is staring at him. The smile is gone, replaced by something Dean doesn't know how to read.

"Thank you," Dean says, tongue slow and fumbling on the words. He doesn't know what else to say. He's pretty sure he can't deal with Sam touching him right now, not sure _what_ he'll do if it's time to hug again.

But Sam just smiles, soft and real through a face Dean can't decipher, and maybe he gets it this time. He does nothing to close the distance between them, and he doesn't look offended when Dean throws himself onto one of the beds and curls up right there in his clothes. He kicks off his shoes and throws his belt across the room, but everything else will have to wait until morning.

For right now, he's tapped out, wrung dry and exhausted. He hears the reassurance of Sam stumbling about the room in his own inefficient bedtime routine. He draws it in like strength and groans appreciatively with the click that drags the room into darkness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It takes two more weeks and another hunt for Sam to figure out that he needs to _know_. He's been twisting his way to reluctant revelation, careful not to let Dean see his distraction. The fact that he needs to know doesn't make it a good idea, especially when he's got no idea what's going on in Dean's head anymore. Knowing his brother wasn't faking it before, that doesn't tell Sam a damn thing about what his brother wants _now_.

So he buries it, careful and deliberate. He takes every urge to cross those lines and sticks them somewhere deep and secret, shovels all his regret right over the top and figures he's done with it. He's not going there, too busy moving on with what passes for his life and keeping an eye on Dean, who is _not_ getting prettier with each passing week god _damn_ it.

Except Sam should know by now it doesn't work that way. Not anymore, the usual Winchester method of coping failing them at every turn. It doesn't keep him from trying, but when the wall finally crumbles it catches him off guard, and he should have seen it coming.

It's too late for retrospect, too late for much of anything, really, because he's already moving across the parking lot. The pavement is scorched and empty around them, the sun intent in the East, and the irony of the scenery isn't lost on Sam. He doesn't spare it much thought as he pulls his brother close.

When he kisses Dean, it's almost too much at once. Real and intense, and he can taste the surprise on startled lips as he wraps himself as far around Dean as he's physically able.

Dean lets him have it for long, perfect minutes. Lets him lay claim as Sam's hand slides into his hair to tilt for a better angle, taking the kiss deeper as Dean's mouth opens for him. Completely sober this time, and Sam notes that it's like kissing Karen, and somehow not like kissing her at all. Dean tastes nothing like her, his lips are softer, it's just _different_. And somehow so damn close. Sam _remembers_ this. Remembers this thing Karen used to do with her tongue as Dean's slips forward and does the same, the familiar tug of teeth on his lower lip, the total surrender of a body nowhere near as small or soft as he remembers, melting against his own.

Sam knows he's on the verge of getting carried away, as if he hasn't gotten there already, and he groans simultaneous relief and frustration when Dean pushes at his chest, forces just enough space between them to break the kiss. Dean's hair is still soft against his fingers, Dean's mouth still so distractingly close, and it takes a moment to register that his brother is talking.

"Sam, what the _hell_?" Dean demands, eyes wide and searching from all of an inch away.

"Um?" is Sam's articulate response.

"Dude, seriously," says Dean. He doesn't move to extricate himself from Sam's hold, but something like desperation flashes behind his eyes as he says, "You don't want this."

Sam thinks that's a pretty stupid thing to say, thinks Dean should have figured it out already, and he would explain it, except that reality is crashing back down around him in bits and pieces.

"Shit," he mutters, letting go and stepping away. Dean's arms drop to his sides, expression closing off and wary, and Sam forces himself to meet his brother's eyes as he says, "Shit, Dean, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have just _done_ that without asking."

The surprise is there and masked again in an instant, Dean's eyebrows quirking and expression settling into a bland inquiry. Sam knows it's bullshit, and can't quite banish his resentment as the walls come back up, blocking him off from even the most fleeting glimpse into his brother's thoughts.

"What's the game, Sam?" Dean asks when he lets the silence drag too long. "What do you think we're doing here?" The words are void of accusation, just weary and confused, and Sam wishes Dean were pissed at him. A pissed off Dean is more honest than this mild, guarded alternative, and Sam doesn't know if he can do this flying blind.

"I think that sort of depends on you," he says, because he's not ready to admit it out loud. He needs a minute to bolster, to work up his resolve before he says just how badly he _wants_. And maybe if he asks just right Dean will give him something to work with. He doesn't need much. Just a hint. Just a miniscule glimpse of an _inkling_ that Dean is thinking the same thoughts and hasn't already moved on and past any of the things Sam is suddenly, desperately hoping for.

"No. You don't get to play it like that." Dean's stance has gone tense, hands stuffed as deep in his pockets as they'll go. "You've gotta tell me what you think this is."

"Dean…"

"You don't _want_ this," Dean repeats, and that's about all Sam can take. He strides close, shuts out the physical distance between them, barely stops before he's touching again.

"I _do_ want this," he says, blood humming with the proximity. Dean is _right there_ , and he doesn't back down at Sam's approach. "I can't get it out of my head, Dean. I can't stop thinking about it."

"Sam--"

"So you've gotta tell me what _you_ want. I need to know if this is just me."

An insurmountable silence climbs between them, hollow and uncertain, and it scares the hell out of Sam. He can't convince his words to break through it, and when it finally shatters with Dean's voice, Sam's heart shatters right along with it.

"I can't do this."

"Dean--," he starts, steps closer, bad idea, and only a thin couple of inches separate them as he fights not to touch and wills Dean to look at him.

"I'm not _her_ , Sam." The words feel like a solid kick to the sternum. "I'm not the Karen you've got wrapped up in your head, and I can't pretend to _be_ her just because you're lonely."

"That's not what this is," Sam says, and the words threaten to choke him. Dean turns scorching eyes on him, lips pressed into an unamused line.

"Bullshit."

And the bitch of it is, Sam doesn't know how to convince him. Dean stands resolute, an impenetrable wall of disbelief. Sam knows that face well enough to know this conversation is over. Even if he could work his words into sense and reason, even if he had beautifully sculpted logic at his disposal and he could explain why this is actually the most sensible idea in the world, Dean wouldn't hear him.

His only hope is to retreat and regroup, and he mutters growled frustrations across the parking lot as he turns his back and stalks toward the street. He's only just figured it out for himself, a little bit embarrassed it's taken him so long if he's going to be honest with himself.

Now he has to make Dean see it, too.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A couple days go by, both of them sleeping for crap, and Dean starts to wonder how long before something gives. Sam keeps staring at him, watchful in a way that makes a hell of a lot more sense since his brother kissed him. He hates that he can't just accept it for what it seems, but he knows better. He's weighted down with this dreadful certainty, and he knows it's only a matter of time until Sam comes to his senses.

The middle of a Tuesday night creeps up like any other, and neither of them is actually asleep. Dean keeps faking it, sure and stubborn, even against the rustle of sound behind him that says Sam has gotten up and moved closer. A sudden but expected dip as Sam sits on the edge of Dean's bed, and Dean just forces his breathing steady.

"I know you're not asleep," Sam says, voice soft and still overpowering in the silent room. "Scoot your ass over."

Dean gives up the pretense, groaning his noisy protest and shifting to make room. He doesn't say it out loud, but he's fully prepared to kick Sam right to the floor if any snuggling ensues.

It doesn't, to Dean's quiet relief. His brother just climbs into the vacated space and sits, propped against the headboard, waiting patiently as Dean rolls reluctantly onto his back to sort-of look at Sam through the dark. He doesn't say anything. It's stupid late, the middle of the night, and maybe neither of them was asleep, but if Sam has something to say then he gets to do the work himself. It doesn't take him nearly as long as Dean expects.

"You don't get to tell me what I want."

The words are blunt and direct, so far from what Dean was expecting to hear that at first he can only stare. Sam seems content to wait. Keeps his hands to himself and his eyes locked with Dean's.

"I'm just calling it like I see it, Sam," he finally says.

"You're full of shit," Sam corrects him. "And I want you to shut up and hear me out. Can you do that?"

"Sam--" Dean starts to cajole, but the look Sam gives him cuts him off cold. He suddenly feels too warm, the air stifling on his skin.

"If you don't hear me out, you are _never_ going to see the end of this, I promise you. I'm not letting it go. So shut up and listen now, or I keep at it until you cave. Your choice."

Dean glowers, because that's dirty fighting and Sam knows it, but he takes the demand literally and keeps silent. Sam gives it a few beats, makes sure he means it before drawing a deep, steadying breath and breaking his eyes away from Dean's to stare across the room.

"This isn't about Karen anymore." Dean stares at his brother's profile. Waits out the pause. "I know you're not her, Dean. But I also know that _she_ was _you_ in a whole lot of ways that count."

Dean wants to protest, wants to and fidgets and catches the quick, sharp look Sam levels at him, so he holds his tongue.

"Anyway, I think I've got it all straight in my head now," Sam presses on. "And I'm _not_ just clinging to some memory because I'm lonely, and I'm _not_ confused about what I want. I'm tired of fighting, Dean, but if we're gonna make this work you need to meet me halfway."

This time the stop feels final, but Dean still gives it long enough to be sure there's no more. Then he still has to check, because he knows better than to question Sam's threat about never letting it go.

"Are you done?" he asks.

"I… yeah. I'm done."

"Good. 'Cause I've got something to say." He braces himself before he says it, because there's no way Sam's going to take it well. But Dean can't afford this, he can't afford to believe any of what's all just a hopeful illusion doomed to crash and burn. "You haven't thought this through, Sam," he finally says. "Y'know how I know? Because you _told_ me what you want. You want to quit hunting and find somewhere safe to start a family with Miss Perfect. That's not me, dude." A shudder-quick swallow, and he has to look away. "It never was."

"I'm not allowed to change my mind?" Sam asks, voice aghast, and Dean fights the urge to look at him. "I thought you were someone else, and I _proposed_ to you, and now you're going to hold me to all that?"

Dean's jaw works, stuck and stubborn, and it's an eternity before he manages to say, "Then maybe _I_ don't want this."

The silence is agony, and he doesn't need to look at Sam to picture too clearly the wide-eyed pain on his brother's face.

"If that's true, I'll back off," Sam finally agrees, voice gone even softer. "But you've gotta tell me flat out, and I don't think you can."

Dean is trying to convince himself to do just that when Sam's hand settling on his stomach sends the world tilting. There's not a hint of hesitation, somehow just an easy slip under the fabric of his t-shirt, accidental and effortless, and whatever coherent thoughts Dean might've had are completely derailed. His eyes fly to Sam's face, his breath catching thick in his throat at the look he sees aimed at him. He can't break free of that stare, and Sam's palm burns soft across his skin.

"Sam?" he whispers, embarrassed at the strangled note he hears in the name.

"Don't do this, Dean," Sam pleads, still staring down through the darkness. "Don't keep shoving me away. I'm not changing my mind about this."

"You don't know that," says Dean, and hates how small it sounds.

"Yes I do. I'm goddamn _sure_ , Dean.

"You'll find someone someday. You'll find someone better, and you'll want to change your mind, but you'll be stuck with me because of some stupid promise you think you have to make."

"How can you say that? After everything you've done for me. After everything you've _been_ for me, how can you even think it?"

Dean's brain can't supply anything to say to that, but it's not really his fault since his brain can't really do much of anything just now. The heavy heat of Sam's hand on his stomach is too much, long fingers stretching impossibly wide along his skin, and it's got nothing to do with sex and _everything_ to do with this. With them. With all the other shit that still hangs indecipherable between them.

"You would've given up everything for me. You were going to _marry_ me, Dean." ' _You were going to have my baby_ ,' they both hear in the silence, but Dean is grateful not to have those words spoken aloud.

They lapse into another stretched pause, the air shaken and full, and Dean can't move to break it. He feels it like paralysis, can't even bring himself to shatter the eye-contact that locks them together.

"Dean," Sam finally says, fingers flexing just slightly and making him inhale sharply. "Can I kiss you? Just a kiss, I swear."

The words seem weirdly out of place, the wrong question and Dean doesn't know how to answer it. He searches Sam's eyes, but there's nothing helpful there. Just that same expression that's been on his face all week, and Dean remembers he's supposed to be responding.

"Okay," he's surprised to hear himself say. "But that's it. Just a kiss. So you can hurry up and figure out you're just really, stupidly confused."

'Not confused, Dean,' Sam's face says. Dean watches him slip down the bed to lean close, Sam's eyes open until the last second as he closes in, and Dean waits until he sees them flutter shut before he closes his own.

It's slow and sweet and deep, Sam's tongue delving and fucking into his mouth, agonizingly gentle. Sam's hand still burns against his belly, warm and reverent, Sam's body a furnace of heat above him despite the maddening millimeter of space hanging deliberately between them.

Dean's head is spinning when Sam finally draws back, and his breath is caught somewhere between his lungs and his tonsils. Sam hovers close for an extra beat, slow exhale hot against Dean's lips, and none of this should feel right.

"Think about it," Sam says, and is gone an instant later. Back to his own bed, taking his heat with him, and Dean feels suddenly bereft. He's cold with the absence of Sam's hand, and doesn't move until he hears Sam begin to snore from the other bed.

This should feel _wrong_ , and Dean can't figure out why it doesn't. Can't figure out why, and maybe it doesn't matter, and he rolls back onto his side and finally, really sleeps.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam is expecting it this time when Dean decides he has Very Serious things to say. He manages to bite his tongue silent in the meantime and throw himself into their next two hunts rather than pushing the issue, and whatever conclusions they are, it's fortunate Dean reaches them when he does. Sam honestly doesn't know how much longer his willpower would've held out.

Dusk surrounds them, the sky tinted with sunset, and his hands don't hesitate on the wheel when Dean points off to the right at a sad, gravel excuse for a road and tells him to take it. His foot is already on the break when Dean says, "here is good."

"Where are we going?" Sam asks after the slam of the car door behind him. He follows, thoughts curious, as Dean picks a seemingly random direction and wanders.

"Nowhere special," says Dean, and then a moment later, "This will do."

The car is barely visible through the brush behind them, and it's not dark yet, but it's well on its way. Dean lands hard on the ground near an enormous tree, and Sam sits more carefully beside him, back pressed to the bark. The grass is dry beneath him, thank god, and he turns questioning eyes and a quirked eyebrow to the matter at hand.

"So," says Dean, suddenly fidgeting, and the mask of casual surety falters. "What now, Sam?"

"Huh?" says Sam, which is about as articulate as he can manage with so little to go on.

"I still don't get it." Dean sets his hands on his knees, legs crossed and one ankle twitching. "Okay, great, so you're sure about this, and you're not gonna change your mind. That's all well and good, man, but I still don't get what you _want_ from me."

"I just want _you_ , Dean," Sam blurts, and why is this such a complicated concept?

"It's not that simple," says Dean, and there's dark consideration in his eyes. "Where to from here? You don't want your white picket fence in the burbs anymore? Fine. What _do_ you want? Because I have to admit, dude, I've got _no_ idea what comes next. I always figured on hunting until I couldn't anymore and then going out with a bang."

Sam can't tamp down the angry look that spreads across his face at those words, frustration singing in his gut that Dean can think his life means so little, that Dean ever planned on just dying out someday and leaving him behind.

"Yeah," Dean says before Sam can find his tongue to speak. "I figured that wouldn't fly. But I never thought about having a future, and then suddenly I _had_ to. There was this split second of knowing I was gonna settle down and start a family, and now I don't know _what_ the hell anymore."

Sam just stares, sees something like defiance in the shine of Dean's eyes and the sway of his posture, and he doesn't know what response Dean is expecting, but for the moment his own voice is stuck somewhere in his throat.

"You've gotta tell me, Sam," Dean presses on when Sam's silence persists. "What now? Where to from here? You're the one with all the dreams."

"So if I wanted to get away from all this and go back to school… you'd stop hunting and come with me?"

"That what you want?" Dean asks, quiet and a little wary.

The silence shifts, long and stubborn as Sam really thinks about it.

"No," he finally says. "Not yet. There's big shit going down, and we're too wrapped up in it to run away now." Dean nods, takes the moment to absorb that, but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to talk and Sam realizes his answer isn't finished.

"Someday, though," he admits, feels Dean's eyes lock on him through dimming twilight. "Yeah, I think I want that. But not if suburbia's going to kill you, man."

Dean's entire frame relaxes at the reassurance, an easy smirk sliding across his face as he says, "I'll let you know when we get there."

It takes Sam an embarrassingly long minute to realize that Dean just gave the okay, that the half-lidded look on his face means 'All right, Sammy, let's give this a shot.'

By the time he works it out, Dean is moving right for him. There's still enough light to see the predatory glint in green eyes as his brother slips a knee over his hip and straddles him, and he doesn't even have time to smile. Because Dean is already kissing him, fingers sliding greedily into Sam's hair, giving a quick, teasing tug as he eradicates the space between them.

It's an awkward angle until they figure it out. Doesn't matter how many times they've done this, because Dean was Karen, was a hell of a lot tinier and never this tall, and it takes a minute or three to get it right. Sam pulls Dean tight against him, feels it like thunder and thinks this might just be perfect.

It doesn't take long before he's all but mad with the not-quite-enough of it, the heavy pressure of Dean in his lap insufficient because they're both wearing too many clothes and he wants _more_. He groans into Dean's mouth, thinks about throwing Dean to the ground and diving in, dirt and grass stains be damned, and his fingers feel like fire where they've snuck under Dean's shirt.

Before he can put his plan into action, Dean draws back. His face is split by a blatant leer, but Sam doesn't know what it means, and at the moment he doesn't have the mental capacity to do more than growl in frustration.

"I ever tell you everything tasted a little different while I was a woman?" Dean asks, face suddenly pleasantly neutral.

" _Tasted_ different?" Sam sputters, completely aghast and why the hell is Dean talking when there are more important things going on?

"Well, it wasn't _just_ taste," Dean clarifies. "Different body, I guess all my senses were a little off. Colors, heat, pain in the ass high-pitched sounds like your whiney-bitch voice. But yeah, taste was the weirdest."

"Why are you telling me this _now_?" Sam groans, letting his head flop back against the tree as his hips buck up hard enough to nearly dislodge his brother, would have done except Sam is holding on as tight as he goddamn can. Dean leers again, dirtier this time and Sam's not sure how that's even possible.

"Come on, Sam. You're a smart boy."

It takes another moment, Sam's blood still not readily accessible to his brain, but when he figures it out he can't decide whether to grin or groan. He settles for letting go his insistent grip and letting his legs fall aside to give Dean space to slide between his knees. Dean is smirking at him outright now, a look that says he plans to march this one out to mock Sam for months to come, and Sam doesn't even care. He's got priorities, and right now the list is dominated by the fact that Dean is tugging his fly open, fingers warm and unfamiliar on Sam's flesh, lips obscene and slick and about to suck Sam off.

So yeah, priorities, and Sam makes a downright embarrassing sound as Dean's lips close around the head of his cock, tongue teasing, a soft hum echoing in his throat. And Sam remembers this, too. Remembers that Karen didn't know how to do this at first, didn't know how to swallow him down whole like Dean is doing now. He remembers the learning curve, the eager, hopeful face as she got the hang of it, and through the overload of sensation his chest suddenly hurts with how much he loves his brother.

It occurs to Sam, just before he comes, that Dean's definitely got the advantage in the blowjob department. Sam's going to have to learn fast if he wants to avoid that smug, victorious smirk, and he realizes that he really doesn't mind.

Because Dean is _everything_ , and Dean is _his_ , and as Sam's hips buck up into the slick heat of his brother's perfect mouth, he thinks that if _this_ isn't happiness, then it doesn't exist.


	4. Epilogue

Ten years fly past in what feels like a heartbeat, and there are still mornings Sam wakes up and wonders how they got here, marvels at the familiar warmth of Dean at his side, snoring more often than not and drooling a little in his sleep. Things still aren't easy, not ever. They know a lot of people they lie to all the time, and they alienated almost everyone else when they realized hiding just wasn't worth it anymore.

Their apartment is small. Well furnished, but still riddled with the necessary accoutrements of their trade. They haven't made it anywhere near suburbia, and Sam is pretty much fine with that. Home is as safe as they can make it, fortified with wards and runes and an abundance of salt in the pantry. They've got lives apart from all that now, but sometimes monsters just need killing, and who else is going to do it?

Sam stands alone in their kitchen, leaning against the counter and nursing a beer. Another sits chilled and open to his left, waiting to be claimed. He listens to what he can hear of the soft murmur of Dean's voice. No clear words make it through the wall, but a quiet reassurance that steadies Sam's own frantic edge. He's still coming down off the adrenaline rush of a hunt that didn't go quite well enough, and he wants his hands on Dean _now_ , wants to reassure himself that they're both _fine_. He stares out the wide window into darkness and fights the urge to fidget as he wonders how many hours before sunup.

When Dean finally trudges his way in from the hall, Sam drags him into a quick, close kiss before handing him the open beer.

"They finally down?" he asks, moving back to resume his lean against the counter. Dean hops onto the small, sturdy table by the window and tosses back half the bottle in one steady gulp.

"Yeah," he answers when he's done, wipes his mouth dry with the back of his hand. "For now, anyway. I doubt either one of 'em will sleep through the night, especially the little one."

"Think they'll be okay?" Sam asks. Already knows the answer as he finishes his own drink and sets it aside.

"Hell no. Both their parents dead right in front of them like that? That's not something you just get over."

"What are we gonna do now?"

"Help them. Try and make them feel safe again."

"And how the hell are we supposed to do that?" Sam asks, incredulous but not surprised. Dean's need to save the whole goddamn world, that's not new.

Dean doesn't answer him in words. Just gives him this _look_ , like he's waiting for Sam to catch on, and quirks an eyebrow when Sam's eyes widen in disbelief.

"Dean, no. No way. We _can't_."

"Why not?" Dean asks, voice all measured reason and deliberate calm. "They've got no one, Sam. I checked it out, and there's nobody else. No next of kin, no appointed guardians, nothing. So we'll have to cut back on hunting and actually watch our money. So what? "

"It's not that simple, man. These kids need _parents_ , not bodyguards."

"You think I don't know that?" Dean asks. And shit, but Sam actually sees hurt in his eyes.

"Dean…"

"We'll need to get a place with a yard. Can't build much of a swing set on the fire escape." Dean's tone is deliberately light, a familiar slide into easy humor, but Sam can still see the somber intensity in his eyes.

"They'd probably be better off in the system," Sam points out, actually hates to do it. "Get adopted by parents that _aren't_ messed up with all this shit."

"Maybe." Dean finishes his beer and chucks the bottle two feet to the recycle bin. "But they've _seen_ it, Sam. Who's gonna believe them when they're finally ready to talk about what happened?"

"No one," Sam concedes, feels something loosen with the admission, and he watches Dean for a quiet moment. Finally says, "You're really serious about this."

"Deadly."

"I guess it depends on them," says Sam. Something about this feels right, but the hope in his chest terrifies him more than a little.

"They want to stay," says Dean. Sam gives him a sharp look that quickly melts into amusement.

"Already asked them, did you?"

"Maybe."

Sam shakes his head in complete disbelief, fighting against the laugh that threatens in his chest. Can't let Dean see he's won quite yet.

"We're going to have to work on this 'united front' thing, dude. If you're a pushover all the time, they're _never_ going to listen to me."

"I don't see any problem with that," Dean says, easy smirk spreading across his face.

"That's because you're an ass," Sam reminds him with a knowing nod. It does nothing to diminish Dean's smug smile, which spreads into an all-out grin as he catches the feel of impending victory. Sam's brain is already running the logistics, working out contingencies and calculating what it's going to take to make this work. He's probably stuck in his own headspace for ten minutes before it occurs to him Dean is still watching, waiting cautiously for Sam to say more.

"We'll need to forge some _fantastic_ paperwork to make this look legit," he finally says, voicing the first big hurdle.

"Yeah, well, that fancy legal education's gotta be good for _something_."

"Dean, if we get caught--"

"If we get caught, they go into state custody same as if we stayed out of it," Dean cuts in. He slides off the table and moves to stand in front of Sam, a little too close and nowhere _near_ close enough as he continues, "And if you tell me _you're_ scared of the law, I'm calling bullshit. Don't make me call bullshit, Sammy." The expression is serious, but mischievous intent sparks in his eyes.

That's about all Sam can take, and he reaches out to grab Dean by the belt loops and yank him close. The corner of Dean's mouth quirks up for half a second before his expression slides newly somber. His hands settle warm on Sam's arms, one sliding up to rest over his heart.

"You gotta tell me if you're really okay with this," he says, never mind that it's practically a given. "If there's something besides the law bothering you, I need to know. If you don't want to, then we don't do a damn thing."

Sam appreciates the proffered out, even if there's no way he can look Dean or those kids in the eyes and take it. He lets his thumbs slide up under Dean's t-shirt, smiles softly and shakes his head. Dean's gaze holds locked to his own, searching and intense, and the relief is almost tangible when it hits, settling through is brother's body, and Dean leans fractionally closer. Whispers, "Thank you," in his ear, and Sam just grins and lays a kiss high on his throat.

"You really think we can do this?" Sam asks, reluctantly letting go as Dean draws back. It's not that he needs the reassurance, not when the path is decided, no backtracking allowed. He doesn't _need_ it, but he wants to hear it anyway.

"We'll figure it out," Dean promises, calm and confident. "Now stop freaking out and come to bed. My dick's not gonna suck itself."

Dean stops in the doorway, turns back to waggle his eyebrows in a mockery of seduction. Sam laughs too loud, covers his mouth to muffle the sound and shakes his head side to side in vague disbelief.

"God, you're such a pervert," he says when he pulls his hand away. "You know you'll have to start watching your mouth, right?"

"Yeah, sure." Dean waves dismissively over his shoulder as he moves down the hall. "Starting tomorrow."

Sam follows without hesitation, knows full well how whipped it makes him that he doesn't offer even token protest. But they probably only have a couple hours to themselves, maybe less, and the need to touch still burns at him.

He forces his brain quiet, shuts out the contingencies, strategies, eventualities that are mucking up his thoughts. There will be time for that tomorrow, next week, everywhere in the difficult months ahead.

Tonight there's Dean, plus two little boys clinging to each other in the spare bedroom, and they're going to make this work. For the moment, that's all Sam needs to know.

~*~*~ **The End** ~*~*~


End file.
